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IN THE 

AGE OF PERICLES 



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PERICLES. 

{From a Bust in, the British Museum.) 



THE UNIVERSITY SERIES 



Greece 



in the 



Age of Pericles 



By ARTHUR J. GRANT 

OF king's college, CAMBRIDGE ,* STAFF LECTURER IN HISTORY TO THl 
CAMBRIDGE LOCAL LECTURES SYNDICATE 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1893 






48 65 55 

JUL 1 8 1942 



PREFACE. 



In writing this book I have had two objects in 
view. Firstly, I have tried to make my account 
of Greece as comprehensive as possible, and to 
omit none of the main forces that helped to mould 
Greek civilisation. I have therefore given a good 
deal of prominence to the social and religious 
conditions of the country. And next I have tried 
to treat of Greek history in relation to the general 
history of Europe. I feel that he who only knows 
Greek history does not know even that, and that it 
is only by connecting and comparing Greece with 
other European states contemporary and subse- 
quent that we can duly appreciate her immense 
services to civilisation, and distinguish what is 
permanent and important in her work from what 
is temporary and trivial. I am conscious that my 
knowledge is not sufficient to allow me properly to 
execute so difficult a task, but I have felt that the 
attempt ought to be made. 

I have not given any bibliography of the subject. 
For the mass of literature dealing with Greece is 
so large that what is most necessary now is to 



vi Prefc 



ace 



distinguish what is more valuable from what is 
less so, and from what is of merely technical or 
antiquarian interest. I have given, however, a 
few words in estimate of the greatest books that 
deal with the subject, and I must here add that 
besides those authors mentioned in the text I am 
much indebted to Holm and Busolt. 

In the preparation of this book I have had 
the advantage of much valuable assistance from 
Miss Thompson, of Scarborough ; Mr. J. W. 
Headlam, Fellow of King's College, Cambridge ; 
and Mr. R. G. Mayor, of King's College, Cambridge. 
They are in no way answerable for the opinions 
expressed in the book ; but I have to thank them 
for much useful criticism, and for the detection of 
many errors. 

A. J. GRANT. 



A, 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE 

\ ON THE 

,^ HISTORIANS OF GREECE. 



This book is only intended as an introduction to 
Greek History. At the end, therefore, of the chapters 
notes have been appended giving some information 
about books and directions for further reading on each 
division of the subject. Here it seems well to say a 
few words about the books that deal with the whole 
subject. 

The chief authorities of the period treated of in this 
volume are the histories of Herodotus and Thucydides. 
Next in importance and value come certain Lives of 
Plutarch. I have assumed throughout that I am writing 
mainly for those who have little or no know^ledge of 
the original Greek. But this does*not prevent me from 
urging those who desire a further acquaintance with the 
subject to go at once to the fountain-head, and turn 
rather to translations of these original authorities than 
to modern histories. Much, doubtless, even of a prose 
author, is lost in translation. His style cannot be exactly 
reproduced, and his style must and ought partly to 
influence us in the importance that we attach to his 
statements. But a translation of a historian gives the 
facts, and we get from Thucydides and Herodotus a 



viii Introductory Note on 

more vivid impression of the reality of what we read 
than we can from any modern history. 

Herodotus was born during the course of the Persian 
wars. He was a native of Halicarnassus, in Caria ; lived 
during the middle of his life in Athens ; and afterwards 
emigrated to Thurii, in Italy, where he wrote his history 
and died. He thus came in contact with the Persians, 
as well as with the state that had played the chief part 
in the defence of Greece. The personal narratives of 
those who had fought in the war are the main source 
of his information. He is the prince of story-tellers, 
as well as the father of history. The charm of his 
style and the general trustworthiness of his record 
have received general recognition. The story of the 
Persian wars is not given in this book, but I would 
strongly urge those who desire a further knowledge of 
Greece to read Herodotus rather than any other author. 
Better than any one else he allows us to realise the 
variety and the charm of Hellenic life. *^ He has 
caught," says Mr. Myers, "the smile upon the face of 
Greece." There are many translations of Herodotus; 
that by Rawlinson (4 vols.) is the most readable; there 
is also an accurate ^ if rather dull translation in one 
volume by Henry Gary (Bohn's Library). 

Thucydides is a still greater name. He has written 
an account of nearly the whole course of the Pelopon- 
nesian war. As supplementary to the present volume 
the first book, which sketches the history of Greece 
between the Persian and the Peloponnesian wars, and 
the second, which contains the Funeral Oration of 
Pericles and the account of the plague and the death 
of Pericles, are perhaps the most important. He was a 
contemporary of the events that he relates, and himself 



The Historians of Greece ix 

a prominent actor in many of them. Born in Athens, 
he retired into exile during the course of the war, and, 
communicating freely with both sides in the great 
contest, was admirably qualified to write its history. 
His accuracy and truthfulness are undisputed. He 
refrains, as a rule, from all direct comment on the 
events he describes, and confines himself exclusively 
to the political and military aspects of the period that 
he relates. And yet the ethical tone of the book and 
the insight it gives us into the character of Greek city- 
life are among its great recommendations. Less attractive 
than Herodotus, and, to one who wishes to gain a 
comprehensive view of ancient Greece, less valuable, 
Thucydides is in matters of fact more trustworthy, and 
to the student of politics and society of much greater 
importance. There are many translations : that by 
Professor Jowett is far the most readable. 

These two historians have all the importance that comes 
from contemporary knowledge of what they describe. 
Plutarch's Lives have no such recommendation. His 
precise date is not ascertainable, but the active years of 
his life are from about 50 to 100 a.d. In writing of the 
Periclean age, therefore, he is separated from what he 
writes of by a period greater than that which lies between 
us and the age of the Tudors. Further, he does not 
profess to write history, but biography. He explains 
what he means by the distinction in his Life of Alexander. 
He chooses those events, he tells us, which serve best 
to bring out the character of his hero, rather than 
those which are of importance in developing the lives 
of states. His value as a historical authority arises 
solely from the fact that he had recourse to many 
authorities that have now disappeared. His knowledge 



X Introductory Note 07i 

of Greek literature was immense : his Lives are loaded 
with quotations from authors great and small ; and his 
substantial accuracy in the cases where we can compare 
the quotation with the original gives us confidence in 
the rest. The Lives, as a whole, have been almost one 
of-the Bibles of the world. The praises of Montaigne, of 
Rousseau, and of Emerson, and the use to which the 
Lives were put by Shakespeare, give convincing testi- 
mony to their value and interest. For the study of 
Greek History they form a most important authority, 
though one that must always be used with caution. 
They have been constantly translated. Where I have 
quoted them it has been from the translation by Stewart 
and Long. 

Of the great modern histories of Greece, the most 
important of those that are accessible to English students 
are Grote's and Curtius'. 

Grote's great work is a counterblast to those writers, 
such as Mitford, who saw in Greek History nothing 
but a condemnation of the republican and democratic 
system. Against this view Grote protests in nearly every 
page of his twelve volumes. His work has for this 
reason been called a political pamphlet on a gigantic 
scale ; and if this partisanship makes him dwell on certain 
features and subjects at too great a length, it never has 
induced him to misread or to misrepresent evidence, 
and it adds greatly to the interest of the book. Himself 
a Member of Parliament, he enters into the political life 
of Athens as a statesman, not as an antiquarian. His 
work must be pronounced weakest where he deals with 
the art and poetry of Greece, or where he omits to deal 
with them ; and his defence of the Athenian democracy 
does not meet many modern objections. Yet Thucydides 



The Historians of Greece xi 

is not more decidedly the first of ancient historians of 
Greece than Grote is of modern. 

Curtius has not Grote's political experience, nor his 
conscientiousness in distinguishing between the deduc- 
tions from evidence and the results of conjecture. Yet 
his history is perhaps the most comprehensive and most 
generally attractive of all that have been written ; the 
religion, art, and geography of Greece are admirably 
treated. 

Mr. Evelyn Abbott's History of Greece gives, within 
reasonable limits, the results of the never-ceasing investi- 
gations and inquiries into the history of Greece that 
have been prosecuted of late years in England and 
Germany. It makes few pretensions to style, and does 
not present a continuous narrative. It can never dis- 
place Curtius or Grote. But its corrections, additions, 
and occasional comments give it a great value to careful 
students of Greek History. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS, 



PAGE 

Preface and Introduction ...... .v — xi 



CHAPTER I. 

The Essentials of Greek Civilisation . . . I — lo 

The Greek and the Modern Conceptions of tht State 

contrasted ........ 2 

Greek Civilisation Non-Industrial 6 

Labour in Greece performed by Slaves .... 8 

Greek Civilisation referred almost exclusively to Males . 9 

The Religion of Greece . 10 

CHAPTER II. 

The Religion of the Greeks ..... 11 — 41 

The Beliefs of the Greeks . . . . . .12 

The Social Applications of the Religion of the Greeks . 18 

1. The Priesthood 18 

2. The Oracles 20 

3. The Great Games of Greece .... 26 

4. The Mysteries ....... 33 

Some Considerations on the Influence of the Religion of 

Greece . . . . . . . . -38 

CHAPTER III. 

Sparta 42 — 65 

The Position and Early History of Sparta ... 43 
The Social Discipline of Sparta 46 



XIV 



Contents 



The Political Institutions of Sparta 
The Subject Populations of Sparta . 
The Results of the Spartan System 

Argos 

Corinth ...... 

Thebes .."... 



PAGE 

55 
58 
61 

63 
64 



CHAPTER IV. 

The Earlier History of Athens .... 66 91 

The Situation of Athens 66 

The Legislation of Solon 70 

The T3Tanny at Athens 77 

The Democratic Reforms of Clisthenes .... 84 



CHAPTER V. 

The Rivalry of Athens and Sparta . . .92- 

The First Differences between Athens and Sparta . 
The Treason of Pausanias and the Transference of the 

Naval Leadership to Athens 

Themistocles in the Peloponnese 

Complete Rupture between Athens and Sparta 



-115 

97 

lOI 

106 
109 



CHAPTER VI, 



Civil Wars in Greece 



116— 143 
125 



Athens loses her Land-Empire 

The Development of the Delian League into the 

Athenian Empire . . . . . . .131 

The Decay of the Delian League 13 c 

Democratic Changes in Athens since the Persian War . 138 



CHAPTER VII. 

The Athenian Democracy . 

The Ecclesia . 
The Election of Officers . 
The Council of Five Hundred 
The Officials of the State 
Financial Administration . 



44—178 

146 
149 

153 
156 

159 



Contents 



XV 



The Administration of the Law ..... 
The Athenian Method of making Laws .... 

The Funeral Oration of Pericles 

Later Contemporary Criticism of the Athenian Democracy 
A Criticism of the Athenian Democracy .... 



PAGE 

162 

166 
168 
170 

^1Z 



CHAPTER VIIL 

Pericles : His Policy and His Friends 

Pericles' Private Life 
Pericles as a Statesman . 
The Political Position of Pericles 
Pericles' Policy 

1. Athens and Sparta 

2. The Treatment of the Allied States 

3. The Domestic Policy of Pericles . 



179—208 

179 
189 
190 
193 
193 
196 

200 



CHAPTER IX. 



Society in Greece 



The Occupations of the People 
Slaves in Greece 

The Position of Women in Greece 
The Characteristics of the Greeks 



209—238 

209 
. 219 
. 226 
• 233 



CHAPTER X. 
The Peloponnesian War to the Death of Pericles . 239 — 268 



The Quarrel between Corcyra and Corinth, and the 

Interference of Athens 
The Debates on the Question of War 
Pericles and the War 
The First Year of the War 
The Plague and the Death of Pericles 



243 
247 

251 

259 
261 



CHAPTER XI. 

The Peloponnesian War ...... 269—294 

From the Death of Pericles to the Peace of Nicias . . 270 
The Sicilian Expedition ....... 277 



The End of the War 



286 



XVI 



Contents 



CHAPTER XII 

Thought and Art in Athens 

Greek Education 

The Sophists . 

Socrates . . , . 

The Theatre at Athens . 

The Prose Writers of the Periclean Age 



Index 



PAGE 

295—325 
298 
301 
306 
310 
316 



327 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Pericles Frontispiece 

West End of the Acropolis ^restored) i 

North Side of the Acropolis {restored) 10 

ElEUSIS II 

Mount Parnassus from Delphi 21 

Plain of Olympia 41 

Plain of Sparta 42 

Bridge over the Eurotas 66 

Athens from the Road to the Piraeus ...... 71 

View of the Plain from the Areopagus 91 

Temple of Zeus Olympus 92 

ACRO CORINTHUS Il6 

View over the Pnyx i44 

Stone Bema 178 

East End of the Parthenon {restored) 179 

Plan of Athens to face page 180 

A.TUiL'n^ {restored by C. R. Cockerelly R,A.) 209 

Athens from the Gardens of the Academy 239 

Temple of Athena at Sunium 269 

Temple of Theseus 294 

Athenian Theatre 295 

Lion Gate, Mycena: 325 

Plan of the Acropolis to face page 200 

Map of Greece At the end 




Rkstoration of the West End of the Acropolis. 



&- 



s^ 



CHAPTER I. 

THE ESSENTIALS OF GREEK CIVILISATION. 

"The whole series of human generations during the 
course of ages should be regarded as one man ever 
living and ever learning," said Pascal in the seventeenth 
century. No phrase could more excellently emphasise 
that continuity and identity of the existence of the 
human race from which the study of history derives 
the whole of its meaning and value. But in this pro- 
cess of '' living and learning " so vast are the changes — 
political, social, religious — that we have at times some 
difficulty in recognising the kinship between far distant 
generations unless we have studied the intervening 
period. And, on the other hand, nothing is more fruit- 
ful in false historical judgments than the ignoring of the 



2 Greece in the Age of Pe fides [Ch. I. 

differences in the very bases of social order that separate 
one period from the other. If, for instance, we transfer 
to Greek history our own ideas on morality, politics, or 
religion, we fail to understand the problems that Greek 
statesmen and thinkers tried to solve, nor can we possibly 
rightly estimate their solution of them. Here, then, some 
attempt will be made to exhibit shortly some of the 
chief differences between the civilisation of Greece in 
the fifth century B.C. and the civilisation of Europe in 
the nineteenth century a.d. 

The Greek and the Modern Conceptions of the State 

Contrasted. 

In the modern world the state and the nation are, as a 
rule, identical, but this was far from being the case in 
ancient Greece. By Greece or Hellas we do not mean 
any political unity such as is implied by the expressions 
Great Britain, France, or Germany. The word bears 
rather the same sort of meaning that is conveyed by 
Europe. It indicates a very large number of quite 
independent states in Italy, Africa, Greece Proper, Asia 
Minor, which, despite many minor variations in religion, 
society, and government, were nevertheless bound to- 
gether by the practical identity of race, religion, and 
language. ^'Europe," says Professor Seeley, "considered 
as Christendom, has had, and still has, a certain unity 
which would show itself plainly and quickly enough if 
Europe was threatened by a barbarian and heathen 
enemy.'' This was the unity that Hellas possessed : 
the behaviour of Europe in the face of the Saracenic 
invasion parallels very closely the behaviour of Hellas 
when the danger from Persia approached. 

It is of the utmost importance to one who first 



Ch. I.] The Essentials of Greek Civilisation 3 

approaches Greek history that he should understand 
how large was the number of these independent states,, 
how. complete was their independence. The district of 
Bceotia is not larger than a very moderate-sized English 
county; yet va historical times we can count in Boeotia 
eight states, which, though later on coerced into union 
by Thebes, regarded complete independence as their 
right, and desired to be related to one another, not as 
one English town to another, but as France to England. 
Again, in the island of Ceos, which is not more than 
twelve miles in length by eight in breadth, we find four 
different states fully organised with separate governments? 
constitutions, armies, communicating with one another 
by means of heralds, making treaties with one another, 
fighting with one another. And every considerable city 
in Greece either possessed or desired this independence. 
For next it must be carefully noted that all these 
states were city states. To the Greek world, as indeed 
to the Roman, the nation state was quite unknow^n. 
Citizenship meant that a man possessed the freedom and 
privileges of a city. The only way in w^hich the Greek 
mind could conceive of a very large state would be 
through the conquest of much adjacent territory by some 
single city, w^hich would then hold that territory as muni- 
cipal property. If so large a state as England had existed 
in the Greek world, all the dwellers in the provinces and 
in the provincial towns would either have possessed the 
franchise of London or they would have been subject to 
London. And another striking actual example may be 
given. When Rome, originally a small city state by the 
banks of the Tiber, had extended her conquests until 
the Mediterranean w^as a Roman lake, all these vast 
dominions were the property of the city of Rome, and 



4 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. i. 

were managed simply by the municipal authorities of the 
city. The prime reason for the overthrow of the Roman 
Republic and the establishment of the Empire, is to be 
found in the impossibility of governing a worldwide empire 
by the forms and methods that had suited Rome while 
yet she was a small city state. For the world of Greece 
and Rome knew nothing of the idea of Representation. 
So fertile is the Greek mind in ideas, so true is it that 
most of the moving forces of the modern world are Greek 
in their origin, that we are surprised to find that the re- 
presentative idea did not spring from them. And indeed 
it does just make its appearance, but ineffectually and not 
for long. The only way in which a citizen could make 
his citizenship effective, or exercise any influence on the 
government and policy of the state, was by presenting 
himself in person at the time of the transaction of pubHc 
business and the election of officers, and giving his vote 
in person. Beyond this idea the greatest thinkers of 
Greece never rose. Aristotle in his Politics, the 
greatest and indeed the only work on comparative 
politics that the world knew until late in the eighteenth 
century, compares the various constitutions that the 
Greek world contained in order to arrive at some con- 
clusion as to the best form of government. When he 
considers how large a state ought to be, his conclusions 
emphasise, as nothing else can. the smallness of the 
Greek city states. All the citizens must be able to 
gather together in one place to listen to a public orator, 
or at any rate to catch the announcements of the town 
crier. He goes on to say: '* Just as a boat can no more 
be two furlongs long than a span long, so a state can 
no more consist of one hundred thousand than of ten 
citizens. . . . If just legal decisions are to be given, and if 



Ch I.] The Essentials of Greek Civilisation 5 

office is to be apportioned to men according to merit, it is 
necessary for citizens to have a knowledge of each other's 
characters, since where this is not the case things must 
needs go wrong with the appointment of officials and 
the administration of law." We seem to be speaking of 
some large club rather than of a state. 

From what we have seen, it follows directly that a 
large state was necessarily a state of low political organi- 
sation. In a large state the citizens could obviously not 
constantly flock to the centre to give their opinion on 
measures or men. The large states of antiquity there- 
fore, whatever name their governments may bear, are 
necessarily despotisms. 

Further, not only was the idea of the ancient state 
different from that of the modern, but its spirit and its 
objects were different. The state was then considered 
not merely as a piece of machinery to secure the property 
and prosperity of citizens, but was regarded as some- 
thing other than and higher than the individuals com- 
posing the state. The interest of the individual was 
regarded as entirely subordinate to that of the state. 
The state was idealised, and no virtue was so universally 
recognised as the duty of self-sacrifice on behalf of the 
state. This idealisation of the ancient state is probably 
to be explained by the necessity of procuring loyalty 
that rested on firmer grounds than the self-interest of the 
moment. It gives to ancient patriotism an elevation and 
a purity which its modern counterpart too often does not 
possess. The exclusiveness of the ancient state is con- 
nected with this idealisation. The entrance to citizenship 
was not thrown open to all, as it is with us. A man 
could not change his citizenship by changing his domicile 
and subscribing to a few easy conditions. Except on 



6 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. i. 

quite rare and extraordinary occasions, during the zenith 
of Greece's greatness citizenship was not granted except 
to those who ckimed it by right of birth from citizen 
parents, and the tendency as time went on was rather 
to render entrance to the ranks of citizens more difficult 
than otherwise. As a rule no fully legitimate marriage 
\ could be contracted between the members of two separate 
city states. A treaty recognising the validity of such 
marriages was one of the greatest proofs of friendship 
between cities. 

Lastly, the ancient state proposed to itself an object 
different from that of the modern state. Of the dis- 
tinction between the spiritual and temporal powers that 
is one of the distinctive products of the middle ages, 
Greece knew nothing. The state proposed to itself to 
watch, not only over the material, but also over the moral 
and religious welfare of the citizens. *' Not. life, but a 
good life,'' says Aristotle, is its object. By sumptuary laws, 
by moral-religious censorship, the Greek state undertook 
the moral guidance of the citizens ; not as the supporter 
of any church or priesthood, but of its own initiative. 

Greek Civilisation Won-Industrial. 

Very rapidly, during the last two centuries, have all 
European states, and such as have carried European 
civilisation into other continents, become industrial. Not 
only have more and more time and attention been given 
to the production of wealth ; not only have all the agents 
of industry, high and low, rapidly and surely advanced 
in public estimation, but more and more have modern 
civilisations embraced industrial and eschewed military 
objects. Herodotus, who represents better than any 
other author the average opinion of Greece, says (ii. 167) 



Ch. I.] The Essentials of Greek Civilisation 7 

that the Greeks "hold the citizens who practise trades 
and their children in less repute than the rest, while 
they esteem as noble those who keep aloof from handi- 
crafts, and especially honour such as are given wholly to 
war." Here we have a point of much importance. The 
civilisation of Greece was military in its basis. The 
objects of the Greek policy were military. There were 
indeed some industries in Greece. There was, of course 
agriculture, the first, greatest, and among the Greeks 
the most honourable of industries ; there were pottery, 
tanning, bootmaking, on a fairly large scale. But the 
amount of industry was not great, and before the state 
and the individual there was no industrial ideal whatever. 
A thoroughly self-respecting man could not harden his 
hands with the plough or the potter's wheel. For him 
the idleness of the marketplace was the only quite 
honourable alternative to political or military employ- 
ments. Seeing then that among the Greeks industry, 
so far as it existed, was despised ; seeing that society 
rested on a military basis, we may not think of war in 
the ancient world as we must think of it in our own 
country. In our society, now almost wholly industrial 
in character, war is a complete anomaly, which would 
be supremely ridiculous were it not so terrible. It 
fulfils no social function and acts only as a disturbing 
force. But this verdict, so obvious now, may not be 
transferred to earlier centuries. In Greece certainly 
war performed important social functions. Peace does 
not now mean listlessness or idleness, it means rather 
the turning of energy from destructive to productive 
channels. But in Greece, where military occupations 
were everywhere the most honourable, a long period of 
peace meant apathy, sluggishness, and nearly always 



8 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. i. 

moral deterioration. When, during the fourth century 
B.C., the Athenians transferred to mercenaries the task 
of defending their possessions both by sea and land, the 
state received a blow from which it never recovered. 
For it is true of the ancient world, though not true now, 
that from war were derived many virtues that had then 
little other support, such as obedience, loyalty, trustiness, 
and the sentiment of honour. 

Labour in Greece performed by Slaves. 

Here is one of the most obvious differences between 
ancient and modern society : the civilisation of the 
Greeks rested on slave labour, ours on free or contract 
labour. In Athens there were probably four times as 
many slaves as freemen ; in Corinth perhaps twice that 
proportion. The condition of Greek slaves and the in- 
fluence of slavery upon the Greek state will be more fully 
treated of in a subsequent chapter. Here perhaps it will 
be well to notice that, as a result, the democracies of the 
ancient world do not deserve the name according to our 
modern ideas. It is true, indeed, that in some respects, 
subsequently to be noted, there is a striking resemblance 
between the methods and tendencies of Greek and modern 
democracies. But there are many meanings included in 
the modern vague use of the word Democracy which can- 
not be attached to the word in its Greek use. The first 
and most obvious difference is that, seeing that in the states 
of Greece the slave population was larger, and usually 
much larger, than the free, the government was in the 
hands of a small minority of the total male inhabitants 
of the state, and deserves rather to be called an oligarchy. 
But, further, the word in its modern use implies the 
dignifying of labour by the entry of the labourers into 



Ch. I.] The Essentials of Greek Civilisation 9 

the circle of citizenship ; it means the transference of 
power mainly into the hands of the hand-workers. Of 
all this there is no trace at all in ancient Greece. It is 
possible to produce from the poets and philosophers of 
Athens a few passages in which it is maintained that any 
kind of useful labour is better than idleness. But these 
do not indicate any popular opinion in that direction. 
The Greek world knew nothing of the dignity of labour. 
The government of Athens was in the hands of people 
who were engaged in no productive occupation, and 
those took the greatest share in the government who had 
least occupation of any kind. The democratic citizens of 
Athens, though in relation to each other upon a footing 
of the most absolute equality, were, with reference to the 
whole population, slave-holders and despots. 

Greek Civilisation referred almost exclusively 

to Males. 

The position of women in Greece, like the question of 
slavery, is reserved, for further discussion in a subsequent 
chapter. But the complete subordination of women is 
a feature of Greek life that must not be omitted in this 
prehminary sketch. Everywhere in the ancient world 
women held a position of less liberty and influence 
than the modern world demands ; and in Greece the 
position of women was, according to our ideas, one of 
degrading subordination. It is not of importance to 
consider here whether the fact was due to the military 
basis of civilisation, or to the religious ideas of the 
Greeks. The fact only need here be noted. Not only 
were politics and war wholly untouched by female 
influence, but the art, thought, and education of Greece 
were almost exclusively for men. 



10 



Greece in the Age of Pei'icles 



[Ch. I. 



The Religion of Greece. 

From this general survey of Greek civiHsation religion 
must not be excluded, though here for the present it 
must be dismissed in a few lines. A further examination 
of the subject will follow in the next chapter. Greek 
Paganism has been defined by a modern thinker as 
** the frank acceptance of pleasure." Goethe spoke of 
mediaeval Christianity as *^the divine worship of sorrow." 
If it be true that in ' considering the development of 
civilisation social forces are more important than political, 
and religious more important than social, how wide a 
difference between Greek civilisation and the Christian 
centuries does this divergence in the fundamental ideas 
of religion imply ! It is a point that should be borne 
in mind in all comparisons that are instituted between 
Greek and modern life. 

Note. — This chapter admits of no definite references. But there 
is an essay in Hellenica (Rivington's, edited by Evelyn Abbott), on 
''Aristotle's Conception of the State," from which much useful 
information may be gained. G. O. Trevelyan's A Holiday among 
some Old F7'ie)ids (Bohn's Library) illustrates wittily tbe small scale 
of Greek political life. 




lt^«s 



Restoration of the North Side of the Acropolis. 



;i:ifU:ii5ff '■"' 




Eleusis. 



CHAPTER II. 



THE RELIGION OF THE GREEKS. 



That the religion of a people must be known and under- 
stood in order to know and understand the history of a 
people, is one of the most obvious generalisations of 
history. For by religion we mean, whatever else we may 
mean, a certain conception of the relation of man to the 
forces of the universe, and the guidance of life that is 
founded upon that conception. In an age of belief, 
therefore, we shall clearly find the chief motive power of 
history in the religious conceptions of the people ; and 
in an age of unbelief it is almost as important to notice 
that there is no such motive power. In this chapter an 
attempt will be made to give some account, firstly, of the 



12 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. il. 

beliefs of the Greeks, and secondly, of the various ways 
in which those beliefs influenced their lives. And then 
some considerations on the influence of Greek religion 
on Greek history will be offered. 

The Beliefs of the Greeks. 

It has been often maintained that the Greeks had no 
sense for the beauties of nature. Although this view 
does not lack the support of great names, it may be at 
once dismissed. There is indeed no other argument for 
the paradox except such as may be found in the fact that 
they expressed their admiration in ways different from 
those which are used by the modern world, or rather by 
the century that has succeeded Rousseau. Beautiful 
descriptions of nature are to be found in the Greek poets. 
There is hardly a temple in Greece that does not show a 
careful selection of the site, with reference, among other 
things, to the view commanded from it. But the really 
final argument against the paradox above mentioned is, 
that the whole of their religion shows an intense feeling 
for the processes and beauties of nature. When Words- 
worth wishes to emphasise the dulness of the modern 
mind to the external world, he does it by contrasting 
our callousness with Pagan enthusiasm : — 

**I had rather be 
A pagan nurtured in a creed outworn : 
So might I, standing on some pleasant lea, 
Have glimpses that would leave me less forlorn, 
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea, 
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn." 

The Greeks of an earlier period had explained to 
themselves the phenomena of the world by attributing 
to them a personal life. There were in historical times 
many traces of this fetichistic faith, which regarded stones 



Ch. ![.] The Religion of the Greeks 13 

and trees and all things as themselves sentient beings; 
but for the most part this form of feeling and faith had 
come to an end. Men no longer attributed sense and 
feeling and desire to the phenomena themselves, but to 
quasi-human beings who were supposed to preside over 
and to cause the action of all things that were. And so 
Greek Polytheism, by a spontaneous movement, peopled 
mountain and stream, air and sea, with a vast number of 
beings with the loves and hates of men. This was the 
material out of which Greek theology was developed. 

" There is perhaps no people," says a recent German 
historian of Greece,* " whose religion it is so difficult to 
bring into a system as that of the Greeks ; no people 
whose religion contains so many contradictions." Upon 
this fascinating and difficult subject of Greek mythology 
it is impossible here to embark. It is hoped, however, 
that the following general statements may not be found 
inaccurate. In historical times there were a large 
number of deities who remained vague, characterless 
impersonations of natural phenomena. To the fellow- 
citizens of ^schylus mountain and forest and flood 
were full of non-natural but quasi-human beings, of 
whom nothing further could be affirmed than that they 
were the divine dwellers in mountain, forest, or flood. 
But a large number of gods had acquired attributes and 
biographies of a more or less definite kind. Various are 
the influences to which we may trace these developments 
in mythology. Sometimes these legends are nothing 
more than the personification of natural processes. Thus 
Persephone, the goddess of corn, spends half her time 
under the ground and half above. Thus the sub- 
terranean disappearance of Greek rivers gave rise to 

* Holm. 



14 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. ii. 

stories like the legend of Arethusa, who leaps into the 
sea on the shores of Greece to reappear in Sicily. That 
is merely a mythological way of saying that a certain 
fountain in Sicily was believed to be identical with a 
certain stream in the Peloponnese. And, further, often 
the stories of the gods are the product of poetic imagina- 
tion in an age when to translate the imaginings of a poet 
into a statement of actual fact did not imply deception. 
Herodotus tells us that Homer and Hesiod were the 
authors of the mythology of the Greeks by fixing the 
attributes and the narratives of the gods. And doubtless 
to these great names many a nameless poet might be 
added. Indeed, all through Greek poetry we see the 
mythology of the Greeks being added to and transformed 
by the poets. And these transformations and additions 
have their origins sometimes in the poets' creative imagina- 
tion merely, sometimes in the desire to present to the 
Greeks objects for admiration and worship, '* a mark 
above the howling senses' ebb and flow." And by these 
and other processes out from the vast throng of gods 
emerge certain prominent figures who are the great gods 
of Greece. 

Greatest of all these gods was Zeus, '' Father of gods and 
men." Originally he was the personification of the sky. 
Mount Olympus, therefore, the highest mountain that 
the Greeks knew, rising into the air for nearly ten 
thousand feet, was specially connected with him. And 
the calm of the mountain top was particularly char- 
acteristic of him. He too was the god who wielded the 
thunder and the lightning. And with this power of his 
was connected the story of his struggle with the Titans, 
representative doubtless of some earlier religion, or of 
the struggle of the local cults to hold their own against 



Ch. II.] The Religion of the Greeks 15 

the worship of the supreme Zeus. They had attempted 
to scale Olympus, and had been destroyed by the 
lightnings from the hands of its lord. To Zeus, too, 
belonged the waters of the heavens. In Homer he is 
almost always the " collector of the clouds." From 
him, therefore, come the rivers also. I have mentioned 
Olympus as the chief seat of his power. But there were 
also two other celebrated homes of this greatest god. 
At Dodona, in Epirus, was his oldest sanctuary, and an 
oracle : these clearly owe their foundation to the period 
before the movement of the Dorian invasion. In the 
Peloponnese the plain of Olympia was dedicated to him, 
and soon became, as will be explained below, one of the 
chief centres of united Hellas. 

After Zeus, the god to whom the Greeks turned with 
most reverence and most hope for help was Apollo. He 
is the god of light. He was usually represented with a 
bow and arrows ; and these doubtless were symbols of 
the sun's rays. And as the rays of the sun disperse the 
darkness, and as light makes civilisation possible, so 
with his arrows had Apollo slain many noxious monsters. 
^As the god of light he is the god of knowledge. None 
sees so far into the future as he ; and therefore his 
oracle at Delphi is of all the most honoured and the 
most visited. An easy transition makes him the god of 
healing also. So plague and pestilence are connected 
with him, and the means of averting them. He was 
honoured through all Greece, but Delos and Delphi 
were far the most important of all the places specially 
dedicated to him. Delos was the central point of the 
^gean islanders. A small, bare island, coveted for its 
soil by none, had perhaps been chosen for that very reason 
as the place for the god's temple. There, in early times, 



1 6 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. ll. 

as we see in the Homeric hymns, vast concourses had 
gathered together in honour of the god. But in his- 
torical times Delphi was a far greater name than Delos. 
There was the very centre of the world. Two eagles 
that had been sent out by Zeus from the east and the 
west had met there ; there Apollo had subdued the 
python ; there was the great oracular shrine of the god, 
for some time the real centre of the civilisation of 
Hellas. Its action will be further considered in the 
second part of this chapter. 

Poseidon, the brother of Zeus, is before all things the 
god of the sea. Yet he has also other functions which 
seem to contradict his central prerogative. The horse is 
specially dedicated to him, and he is the god of earth- 
quakes. The horse may have something to do with the 
waves that hurry quickly to the shore ; the blows of a 
heavy sea on a rocky shore may have given him his 
attribute of *' Earth-shaker." The_sea was the highway 
of the^jjreeks, and the chief source of their wealth 
and civilisation; no state could refuse to pay a special 
worship to such a god. We cannot, therefore, speak of 
any special home or sanctuary. On very many promon- 
tories were temples in honour of Poseidon. 

Athene, the daughter of Zeus, who, according to the 
grotesque legend, sprang from the head of her father 
when he had been struck by the axe of Hephaestus, the 
god of fire, was originally probably the personification 
of some aspect of the sky. Her especial mark was the 
head of the Gorgon which she carried on her cegis or 
shield. That terrible head, upon which no one might 
look and live, with its encircling snakes, has been thought 
to represent the thundercloud with flashes of lightning 
playing round it. She is especially the god of Athens. 



Ch. II.] The Religion of the Greeks 17 

The olive tree, the chief source of the agricultural wealth 
of the state, was her gift. The owl was her sacred bird, 
and became the symbol of the city. She is the goddess 
of knowledge and of wisdom, and thus appropriately 
found her most famous temple in Athens. 

Many other deities should here be mentioned, did the 
scope of this book allow it. But the deities of Eleusis 
must at any rate be named. There, in the sacred town of 
the Mysteries, Demeter and Persephone were honoured. 
Demeter is the personification of the fruits of the earth. 
Her daughter, Persephone, was carried off by Pluto, the 
god of the nether world, the abode of the dead. Her 
mother sought for her long, and at last by an appeal to 
Zeus managed to procure that for some months her 
daughter should abide with her in the upper world, while, 
for the rest of the year, she remained with Pluto as the 
Queen of Hades. How readily this beautiful legend can 
be explained by reference to the corn that Demeter 
personified has been mentioned above, and will be 
sufficiently obvious to every one. But these deities here 
deserve special mention because of their connection 
with those Mysteries that will be dealt with in the second 
part of this chapter. 

But besides these deities, great and small, that are 
here mentioned or hinted at, it must be noticed too that 
the Greek mind was full of the superstitions, fair and 
foul, that are naturally engendered by a belief in a vast 
^Anumber of capricious deities whose actions are amenable 
to no law. In the age of Pericles scepticism had in- 
vaded the intellectual classes. Pericles interpreted an 
eclipse of the sun by reference to natural causes, and 
refused to regard it as an omen. Thucydides speaks 
of oracles and prodigies with something of the scorn of 

2 



■nI 



1 8 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. ii. 

Voltaire. But the mass of the people still clung to its 
superstitions long after the religion of the Greeks had 
lost its healthy social influence. The existence of 
supernatural beings was to them a matter of spontaneous 
belief: they accepted omens, prodigies, and miraculous 
occurrences of all sorts as readily as the mediaeval world. 
To Herodotus, who comes before the age of Pericles, and 
to Xenophon, who comes after, though both were men 
of intellectual eminence, the most trivial occurrence may 
be an indication of the will of the gods. 

The Social Applications of the Religion of the 

Greeks. 

Religion and philosophy differ always in this, that 
while philosophy may seek after truth for the pleasure of 
contemplating it, religion always desires to apply it to the 
guidance of life. Here an attempt will be made to show 
by what channels and to what extent the religion of 
Greece influenced the life of the Greeks. It will become 
plain that the social action of Greek Polytheism was 
weak, and that this weakness resulted in both advantage 
and disadvantage. 

I. The Priesthood. 

All the strong religions of the ancient, mediaeval, and 
modern world have tried to influence society by a class of 
priests with special knowledge of the doctrines of their 
religion and constantly occupied in disseminating them. 
And such priestly bodies have found a support sometimes 
in the intricacy of the ritual whereby the favour of the 
divine power can be gained, sometimes in the difficult 
and mysterious character of the doctrine, sometimes in a 
special training of character and a discipline of life that 



Ch. II.] The Religion of the Gi'eeks 19 

separates them from the rest of the world. Scarcely 
anything of this was to be found in Greece. There were 
priests, but there was no priesthood. " Greece," as 
M. Renan points out, " never had a sacred book ; she 
never had any symbols, any councils, any sacerdotal 
caste organised for the preservation of dogma." Any one 
could, under certain circumstances, perform the functions 
of a priest. At Athens an officer elected by the chance 
of the lot from all the citizens was the official head of the 
religion of Athens. In the kingly times all kings were 
high priests also. In Sparta the kings retained these 
powers throughout the historical period. The priests 
that are found in Greece are not the special mouthpieces 
of the deity ; they are simply officers appointed by 
various methods to carry out religious duties, as other 
officers were appointed for political duties. In some 
temples the priests were hereditary ; in some they were 
elected. Sometimes they retained office for life ; some- 
times they held it only for a year. Patrons presented to 
some priesthoods ; in many cases they were bought for 
money down. We have an inscription in which the 
prices paid for the position of priest to Hermes at Hali- 
carnassus are chronicled. A sum representing ^184 is 
the highest amount paid. 

The very character of Greek religion forbade an 
organised priesthood. It was never worked up into a 
co-ordinated system. The doctrines, such as they were, 
were not the work of priestly guilds, but of the un- 
restrained imagination of poets and the common people. 
When, in the third and fourth centuries a.d., the pressure 
of the advance of Christianity forced on an attempt to 
systematise Paganism, the attempt failed, and indeed could 
not be made without large importations of quite foreign 



20 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. ll. 

ideas from the East. Upon such a basis of shifting 
legend no strong religious system could be built up. 
The priests of Greece never even aspired to such power 
as was possessed by those of Egypt and the Jews ; they 
were even considerably weaker than the priests of Rome. 
They were united by no common bond ; they did not 
profess an identical set of doctrines. They were simply 
charged, to use the words of Aristotle, "to attend to those 
things which are ordained to be done towards the gods," 
just as an officer of the navy attended to the things that 
concerned ships. 

2. The Oracles. 

The religion of Greece, we have said, had no official 
priesthood and no sacred book. An ordinary man 
might know as much of the gods as the priest of the 
temple ; poet or philosopher had little hesitation in 
criticising and amending the legends of the gods. Yet 
there was one place where the priests could speak with 
authority, one channel through which the voice of the 
god made itself heard with particular potency. That 
place was the great oracle of Delphi. 

There were a very large number of oracular seats in 
Greece. Two hundred and sixty have been counted 
either in Hellas or, though in foreign countries, known to 
and used by the Hellenes. And everywhere, by count- 
less methods, the will of the gods and the hidden future 
could be discovered by signs and omens. Cicero gives 
in a sentence what must have been the dimly realised 
theory of all these divinations : "If frogs by croaking and 
oxen by snuffmg the air can give us signs to foretell the 
weather, why should there not be omens in the fibres of 
a victim's entrails or in thunderstorms?" To a Greek, 




Mount Parnassus from Delphi 



2 2 Gf'eece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. li. 

who felt himself to be surrounded by a vast number of 
capricious deities, to whom the unchangeable laws of 
nature were inconceivable, there was nothing strange in 
the notion that the will of the gods could be determined 
by signs that are to us quite trivial. A chasm in the earth 
leading down to unknown depths or to a subterranean 
stream, the flight of birds, the lightning playing about the 
sacred mountain — what more natural than that all these 
should be regarded with pious reverence and carefully 
scrutinised to ascertain the intentions of the gods. All 
5^ irregular human phenomena were especially likely to be 
full of divine meaning. Dreams, however impossible of 
interpretation, were nevertheless always sent from the 
gods. The phenomena of epilepsy were regarded as 
certainly the result of demoniac possession. Every day, 
in every state, the omens were observed ; and no Greek 
army ever joined battle until the favourable intentions 
of the deity had been discovered by sacrifice. 

But as among the vast crowds of divine beings certain 
great gods emerged, so was it with these seats of divina- 
tion. And by far the most important of all was Delphi. 
This place was considered to be the centre of the 
world, and was indeed a very central point for the whole 
of Hellas. The story was how here Apollo had slain 
the python, and in the great annual festival songs still 
recorded the contest, which may probably be taken as 
typifying the victory of the new development of Paganism 
over an older local cult. The situation of Delphi is 
solitary and forbidding. P.arnassus rises to a height of 
8000 feet behind it. The spot where the great temple 
of Apollo was built was somewhat difficult of access, and 
the situation had litde to recommend it except three 
excellent perennial springs. Yet the place was naturally 



Ch. II.] ' The Religion of the Greeks 23 

connected with thoughts of supernatural powers : the 
deep cleft in the mountain side suggested a connection 
with the spirits of the underworld, and from it a mad- 
dening vapour was supposed to rise. The solitude and 
the height of the mountain increased the solemnity of 
the spot. 

Here was the supreme oracle of Greece, the seat of 
the god " whose words could not lie." Upon a tripod 
over the cleft from which the miasmic vapour was said 
to rise, the Delphian priestess sat, and when she was 
under its influence the questions were propounded to 
her. What she said was not precisely made known to 
the worshippers. The priests of the temple interpreted 
her confused sounds, and gave them to the questioners 
in hexameter verse. That these responses and the right 
to apply for them were most highly valued through 
successive centuries is as certain as any fact in history. 
Wars were fought for the independence of the temple \ 
the right to consult the oracle was usually stipulated for 
in treaties and truces. It was not only the ignorant and 
superstitious who esteemed the oracle of Delphi. Kings 
and statesmen asked for its approval of their measures. 
Plato, when he is founding his ideal Republic, recognises 
religious institutions as 'Hhe greatest and noblest and 
chiefest thing of all," but expressly leaves the ordering 
of them to the god at Delphi " who sits in the centre on 
the navel of the earth and is the interpreter of religion to 
all mankind." Besides giving definite answers to definite 
questions, the Delphian god constantly maintained the 
principle of morality. Greek religion never did and 
never could produce a decalogue ; and it must be 
owned that Greek civilisation suffered through having 
no definite morality, no authority on matters of conduct. 



24 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. II. 

But the mottoes that were inscribed on the temple, be- 
ginning with the celebrated " Know thyself " over the 
main entrance, supplied a not contemptible substitute for 
a code of morals. And we see the oracle constantly 
exerting a practical influence on the course of affairs. 
Perhaps there has been some exaggeration in the matter. 
Yet that the oracle assisted always and sometimes directed 
the remarkable colonising efforts of the Greeks in the 
seventh century B.C. cannot be denied. Solon's legis- 
lation received the god's oracular sanction ; by order of 
the god the Spartans, sorely against their will, drove out 
the tyrants from Athens. Nor was it in Greece alone 
that the oracular responses of the god were valued. The 
temple at Delphi was a museum of treasures, but nothing 
there was more valuable than the rich presents that had 
been received from Croesus, king of Lydia, not only 
to induce the god to grant favours in the future, but also 
as thank-offerings for benefits received in the past. 

How are we to explain this long-continued influence on 
a singularly acute and not credulous people of an oracle 
in which no modern mind will find it possible to beheve ? 
Few now will care to repeat the Voltairian sneers about 
priestcraft and the gullibility of the people. The strength 
of an institution so valued and for so long must be found 
in something good it contained, not in the falsity which 
was common to it with all the beliefs of the time. 
Priestcraft there was indeed, and deceit. Many of the 
oracles that have come down to us are so mysterious that 
they may mean anything or nothing ; others are clearly 
constructed so as to bear a double meaning, as when 
Croesus was told that if he crossed the river Halys to 
fight against the Persians he would destroy a great 
power, and the '* great power " turned out to be that of 



Ch. II.] The Religion of the Greeks 25 

his own kingdom. Many of the responses, too, upon 
which the fame of the oracle has rested, are, without 
doubt, forgeries after the event. But the enthusiastic 
veneration of centuries and the practical guidance given 
to Hellenic civilisation remain a fact. It can, I think, 
only be accounted for by supposing that the priests of 
Delphi, coming into contact with people from all the 
states of Greece, had better information than the citizens 
of any particular state could be expected to possess. 
Belonging to no state, they had no local bias to disturb 
them. They may very possibly have had foreign corre- 
spondents, w^hich w^ould enable them to guide the coloni- 
sation of Greece. And if they used all these means of 
gaining knowledge and gaycTout the results as the advice 
of the god, that does^n<5f necessarily imply that they were 
impostors. It is strangQ but certainly true that a man 
may forge miracles and yet believe in the god in whose 
name they are performed. The mediaeval priest who 
worked the strings of the miraculous image was probably 
not a sceptic. And the need of some such central 
spiritual authority was so strongly, if unconsciously felt, 
that the not very satisfactory guidance afforded by Delphi 
was gratefully received. 

But that guidance w^as not satisfactory and gradually 
weakened. Several times in Greek history it was a matter 
of notoriety that the priestess had been bribed. • At the 
time when the invasion of Xerxes approached there came 
from Delphi no encouragement or incitement to heroic 
daring, but only words of despair and counsels of sub- 
mission. And when the sceptical movement arose in 
Greece the Delphian oracle had no defence to offer. 
Obviously the utterances of a woman maddened perhaps 
by mephitic fumes are no basis on which a stable spiritual 



26 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. ii. 

power can be built when faith begins in the least to fail. 
And the priesthood had no system of theology, no 
scheme of life, no organisation even to appeal to, when 
the strength of the oracle began to decline. And so, 
though the oracle did not completely die, and perhaps 
gained in wealth and grandeur as Greek prosperity 
declined, it ceased to be a real centre for the religious 
life of Greece ; it ceased to give to Greece any spiritual 
cohesion, and thus to the centrifugal tendencies of Greek 
politics one strong check was removed. And here again 
we find that, as compared with other religions, the religion 
of the Greeks had little social influence over the people 
of the land. 

3. The Great Games of Greece. 

It is in connection with religion, too, that the athletic 
festivals of Greece may best be considered. It is true 
that their influence upon the civilisation of Greece was 
rather accidental than intentional, and that before long 
the sporting element outstripped the religious. But 
they spring from the religion of the Greeks ; they 
remain all along connected with it, and are highly char- 
acteristic of it. 

The gods of Greece were not, as a rule, represented 
either as themselves cruel or as delighting in cruelty. 
True there are signs in Greece of human sacrifices, and 
the gods were occasionally represented as administering 
vengeance for any slight to their honour. But this is 
not what is characteristic of Greek religion. If we 
cbntrast it with other contemporary religions we are 
struck with the absence of cruelty. The gods of Greece 
were never to be honoured by pain or self-torture ; hardly 
ever even by self-abnegation. The beliefs of Greece did 



Ch. II.] The Religion of the Greeks 27 

not form one of the creeds **that refuse and restrain." 
The gods were honoured, not by pain, but by pleasure ; 
not by ^oUtary self-chastisement, but, as a rule, by public 
and tumultuous rejoicing. And hence in Greece nearly 
all acts of public worship took the form of popular 
festivals. All the theatrical performances of Greece 
were regarded as religious ceremonies, and as such might 
fitly find mention in this chapter. Still more distinctly 
were the great athletic festivals intended originally to 
do honour to certain deities. 

The greatest of these festivals was the Olympian. It 
is unnecessary here to attempt to find any solid ground 
in the myths that professed to record its first establish- 
ment; enough for us to see it as it was when the full 
light of history strikes it. The scene of this, by very far 
the most important athletic festival in the world's history, 
was by the banks of the Alpheus, the most considerable 
of Peloponnesian rivers, a few miles from its mouth. 
There the mountain system of Arcadia sinks into a plain 
as it approaches the sea. And by the banks of the 
Alpheus, fordable with difficulty in summer, and in the 
rainy season a raging torrent, was a level space well suited 
for athletic sports. To this spot, once in every four years, 
picked athletes flocked from every quarter of Greece. 
The precise date of the festival it seems impossible to 
determine, but it certainly fell either at the end of June 
or the beginning of July. It is a strange period of the 
year to choose ; for then the valley of the Alpheus is so 
intolerably hot that now most of the inhabitants move 
up to the mountains. Some slight change in the climate 
may have taken place ; but the time of year can only be 
explained by reference to some unknown religious reason. 
Originally the festival had consisted of a single event. 



2 8 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. ii. 

the short foot-race of six hundred yards. This ahvays 
remained the nominally chief race of the year, and the 
festival was named after the victor in this contest. The 
year 776 B.C. is, on doubtless no very good evidence, 
taken as the first year in which this race was run. Soon 
another foot-race, twice as long as the former, was added. 
Both these races were run in the thick dust of a Greek 
midsummer; there was no preparation of the track. 
Other innovations rapidly followed. At the eighteenth 
festival the Pentathlon, or contest in five kinds, was 
added. This included running and jumping, the casting 
of the spear and the "discus," and ended with wrestling. 
How precisely the prize was awarded we do not know ; 
but the victor must have shown capacity in most of the 
contests. Next came the introduction of the boxing 
contest, in which the combatants fought with their hands 
and arms wrapped round with leather and iron. It had 
all the brutality and more than the danger of a modern 
prize-fight. In 680 were introduced still more exciting 
contests : racing with four-horse chariots, and the pan- 
cratium or mixture of boxing and wrestling, the most 
brutal of all the Olympian contests, in which victory was 
determined by the inability of one of the combatants to 
continue the struggle. The only other innovation that 
need be mentioned is the introduction, in 520 B.C., of 
the race with the full armour of a heavily armed 
soldier. 

What is most characteristic of these Greek festivals 
is the absence of cruelty and savagery when compared 
with the amusements of other people contemporary and 
modern. Doubtless the boxing contests and the pan- 
cratium were usually brutal exhibitions enough. Life 
was not infrequently lost. The pugilists formed a sort 



Ch. II.] The Religion of the Greeks 29 

of guild or school, and went from contest to contest. 
They must have possessed many of the characteristics of 
the modern prize-fighter ; though the Greek pugilist's life 
was somewhat redeemed by the honour in which he was 
held, and the fact that his victory conferred glory upon 
his state must have helped to elevate his character. It 
must be owned, too, that as time went on the simple 
athletic contests lost in repute, and the brutality of the 
boxing match or the display of the four-horse chariot 
races created the greatest enthusiasm ; the last came in 
the end to be the most important event in the festival. 
Yet notwithstanding all these considerations the Olympian 
festival, by reason of its comparative humanity, the 
valuable physical training that it implanted among the 
Greeks, and the proof it affords of their delight in physical 
grace and strength, gives us the best idea of the depth 
and reality of their civilisation. The Olympian festival, 
however, never included any poetical or musical contests 
such as we shall shortly have to notice elsewhere. There 
were indeed contests for trumpeters and heralds ; here, 
however, it was strength of lung, not any musical excel- 
lence, that gained the prize. 

But if we think of the Olympian games merely 
as a glorified athletic festival, we have not begun to 
appreciate their true significance. Here only in Greece 
we find a sense of the unity of Hellas and of the bonds 
that connected the different states clearly felt and really 
operative. No one might enter for the Olympian contests 
who was not of pure Hellenic blood ; and though it was 
difificult to define and determine purity of descent, the 
need of such a qualification emphasised the fact that 
there was something which separated Hellenes from the 
rest of the world. It was the immediate cause of the 



30 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. ii. 

failure of Hellas as a political and military power, that 
there was no authority, spiritual or temporal, to enforce a 
sense of her unity. That the Olympian festival clearly 
could not do. Athletic games could not supply a lever 
strong enough for such a task. But it came nearer to 
the desired end than any other institution in Hellas. 
Before the festival the sacred truce, like the mediaeval 
truce of God, was proclaimed. For the time all hostilities 
ceased. None might molest any visitor to Olympia on 
pain of all the penalties that attended on sacrilege. 
Nor was the truce a dead letter. Proud Sparta herself 
had to pay a heavy fine for taking up arms during the 
sacred month. And in a later age even Philip of 
Macedon apologised for an insult offered by one of his 
soldiers to a traveller to Olympia. 

And, further, not only were athletes and those inter- 
ested in athletics attracted to the games. The gathering 
was also the opportunity for a great bazaar or fair, when 
traders from all states could meet on an equal footing. 
Hither, too, came artists, poets, politicians, to exhibit their 
talents and to interchange ideas. Here the orators Lysias 
and Gorgias tried to nerve the later Greeks to a common 
effort. The biographies of statesmen, philosophers, and 
poets show them to us appearing not infrequently at 
the great national festival. 

The Olympian was by far the greatest Greek festival, 
but there were three others that were open to all Greeks. 
These were the Pythian festival held at Delphi, the 
Isthmian near Corinth, and the Nemean games in the 
valley of that name in the Argolic peninsula. These 
demand from us here no close attention. They repeat 
the Olympian festival in its main features, though doubt- 
less they were frequented by a smaller concourse and 



Ch. ir.] The Religion of the Greeks 31 

exerted less influence. They differ from the Olympian 
festival, however, in that prizes were given for music and 
for poetry. 

The victors at these Panhellenic games were honoured 
and admired almost beyond belief The desire for dis- 
tinction was so keen among the Greek states, that the 
whole state felt honoured when, at Olympia, its name 
was coupled with that of the victorious athlete. And 
the actual rewards that he received were by no means 
unsubstantial. It is true that the actual prize at the 
four great festivals was only'a ** corruptible crown " : the 
crown of wild olive at Olympia ; the laurel at Delphi ; 
fir leaves at the Isthmian ; and at Nemea the ivy-garland. 
Nor were the actual prizes of much value even at the 
inferior festivals ; we hear only of a silver cup, a woollen 
mantle, a brazen shield, and money prizes of a small 
amount. But in all the great contests victory brought 
with it great privileges. By a law of Solon the victor at 
Olympia received a considerable sum of money. The 
same custom was usual in many other states. Nearly 
everywhere he received freedom from taxation, public 
sustenance, the best seat at the theatre, and various 
other privileges. And thus the life of an Olympian 
victor passed into a proverb for the greatest happiness 
that was possible on earth. But if we wish to realise 
thoroughly "how highly victory at the games was prized, 
it is only necessary to turn to the poetry of Pindar. 
There we find this great poet writing odes in praise of 
victory in the great games, in a style which at one time 
reminds us of Milton by the splendour of its colour, and 
at another time of Isaiah by its prophetic fervour. It is 
true that he usually, after a few words devoted to the 
victor and the contest, turns aside to speak of gods and 



32 Greece in the Age of Pe?icles [Ch. ii. 

heroes connected with Delphi or Olympia, Nemea or 
Corinth. Yet of all this splendid poetry the immediate 
prompting cause was the victory of a boy in the short 
race or of some boxer in the pancratium, or the gratifi- 
cation of some great and wealthy prince by a victory in 
the four-horse chariot race. It is hard to make extracts 
from the odes in which Pindar sings of ^' the Olympian 
games where is striving of swift feet and of strong bodies 
brave to labour, where he that overcometh hath for the 
sake of those games a sweet tranquillity throughout his 
life for evermore." The two following extracts must 
suffice. If they give no idea of the splendour of the 
poetry, they indicate, in a fashion almost grotesque, 
the high esteem in which physical prowess exhibited at 
the games was held. Here, in the fourteenth Olympian 
ode, he sings the praises of Asopichus of Orchomenus, 
who had won the boys' short foot-race. " O ye who haunt 
the land of goodly steeds that drinketh of Cephisus' 
waters, O Graces guardians of the Minyae's ancient race, 
hearken, for unto you I pray. For by your gift come unto 
men all pleasant things and sweet, and the wisdom of a 
man and his beauty and the splendour of his fame. . . . 
In Lydian mood of melody concerning Asopichus am I 
come hither to sing, for that in the Olympic games the 
Minyae's home is winner. Fly, Echo, to Persephone's 
dark-walled home,* and to his father bear the noble 
tidings, that seeing him thou mayest speak to him of his 
son, saying that for his father's honour in Pisa's famous 
valley he hath crowned his boyish hair with garlands 
from the glorious games." In the seventh ode the 
praises of Diagoras, a professional pugilist, are sung. 

* Asopichus' father was dead, but, even in death, his heart would 
rejoice to hear of his son's athletic victory. 



Ch. II.] The Religion of the Greeks 33 

First his many victories are recounted. ^' Of garlands 
from these games hath Diagoras twice won him crowns, 
and four times he had good luck at famous Isthmus, and 
twice following at Nemea, and twice at rocky Athens. 
And at Argos the bronze shield knoweth him, and the 
deeds of Arcadia and of Thebes, and the yearly games 
Boeotian and Pellene, and ^gina, where six times he 
won ; the pillar of stone at Megara hath the same tale to 
tell. But do thou, O Father Zeus, who boldest sway on 
the mountain ridges of Atabyrios, glorify the accustomed 
Olympian winner's hymn, and the man who hath done 
valiantly with his fists ; give him honour at the hands of 
citizens and of strangers : for he walketh in the straight 
way that abhorreth insolence, having learnt well the 
lessons his true soul hath taught him, which hath come 
to him from his noble sires.'' 

Never again, we may safely prophesy, will a boxer 
find such high poetic eulogy. 

4. The Mysteries. 

■ Even in so slight a sketch as this it would be absurd 
to treat of Greek religion without some mention of the 
Mysteries. 

One of the most striking contrasts between the religion 
of the Greeks and the great religions of the ancient or the 
mediaeval world is the absence of the sense of mystery 
and of any attempt to solve the great problems of human 
life. Some have defined religion as a sense of the 
infinite ; to many its chief raison d'etre seems to be to 
answer the questions of the whence and whither of human 
life. But if this be a right definition of religion, Greek 
paganism hardly deserves the term. It knew little of 
mystery, except the infinite mystery of all things. The 

3 



V 



34 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. ii. 

popular religion only contained the vaguest hints of a life 
after life, in which pale shades regretted their former full 
existence. But this sense of mystery, this attempt to 
solve the problems of life, was brought by the Mysteries. 

There were other Mysteries in Greece besides those of 
Eleusis, but so far more important were these than all the 
rest that I need speak only of them. As their name 
implies, there was much in them that was concealed 
from contemporaries, and we are not able entirely to 
pierce the veil that hid them from the outside world. 
But there is a good deal that we do know, gathered from 
the hints of Greek writers of the earlier period and the 
more explicit statements of those of a later period, from 
paintings on vases and the remains of the monuments of 
antiquity, and from the attacks of Christian fathers who 
saw in the Mysteries the most dangerous opponent of 
their own faith. What we do know, if we come to it 
with modern feelings and ideas, seems to us a piece of 
mummery, trivial, stupid, and often obscene. And I 
think there can be little doubt that if we knew more that 
feeling would be deepened. 

Only if we approach the Mysteries with these feelings 
and ideas is it impossible for us to understand their 
meaning and their importance. We repeat the mis- 
take of Protestantism which regarded the worship of 
saints and the Mass as degrading superstitions merely 
because the doctrines underlying them were no longer 
credible. Nothing is more certain than that for many in 
Greece the Mysteries were the starting-point for deeper 
thoughts on the great questions of life, the cause of nobler 
actions in life and braver hopes when death approached. 
How much the deep feeHng of piety and awe that 
pervades the plays of ^schylus is due to his connection 



Ch. II.] The Religion of the Greeks 35 

with the Mysteries (he was born at Eleusis) is proved 
by the consent of antiquity and the fact that he was 
prosecuted for having made a revelation of the secrets of 
Eleusis in his dramas. The fair vision that Pindar again 
and again gives us of the life beyond the grave may be 
partly ascribed to the credit of the Mysteries. When 
Greece was no longer free and scepticism had invaded 
the Pagan faith, the credit of the Mysteries did not 
disappear. Cicero was initiated, and affirms that they 
enabled a man *' to live happily and to die with a fairer 
hope.'' 

That the Mysteries gave men these nobler ideals and 
these higher hopes is really the important thing about 
them. The trivial and repulsive details rather hinder 
than help us in really understanding the matter; but 
some account must be given of them. Eleusis, as has 
already been stated, was sacred to the worship of the 
two goddesses, Demeter the mother and Persephone the 
daughter, in whom we see the personification of the corn. 
One of the most beautiful stories of Greek mythology 
told how the daughter was carried away beneath the 
earth, how the mother sorrowed, and how at last the 
daughter was restored to her for a portion of every 
year. This is clearly an allegory of the sowing of the 
seed and the springing of the corn ; but it is clear too 
how easily and naturally it could be connected with the 
worship of the deities of the underworld, and how easily 
the death of the seed and its resurrection into a new life 
might be made a symbol of immortaUty ; and round this 
core the Mysteries grew up. 

The temple at Eleusis was the largest in Greece and 
built on quite a different plan from any other. It 
consisted of two stories, and was built to accommodate 



36 Greece i7i the Age of Pericles [Ch. il. 

a vast concourse of people, not merely to contain the 
sacred image of the deity. A large number of priests 
were connected with the temple, and the chief priesthoods 
were kept in certain sacred families. On assuming the 
priesthood a man dropped his secular name, and was 
henceforth known only by the office that he held. The 
most severe laws defended the Mysteries. Profanation 
was punished with death. It was made a capital charge 
against Alcibiades that he had parodied the Mysteries 
in his private house. 

The ceremony of the Eleusinian Mysteries occurred 
once in every year at the time of the sowing of the corn, 
and lasted nine days. Until the time of the Pelopon- 
nesian war initiation was open to all freeborn Athenians, 
and nearly all Athenian citizens, men and women, were 
initiated. From those who claimed the privilege some 
sort of discipline was exacted. They must refrain from 
certain foods, from the flesh of chickens, from fish, beans, 
pomegranates, and apples. Early in the nine days of the 
ceremony they made their way along the sacred road, 
twelve miles in length, that separated them from Eleusis. 
Near the beginning of the Eleusinian plain were certain 
salt-ponds, which possessed a special sanctity through 
the unexplained variation in the height of their water. 
Hither those who were to be initiated came each with a 
pig, and there they washed themselves and the pig, that 
was shortly to be sacrificed to the goddesses. Then on 
the following days there was sacrifice and ceremonial 
enough, of which little is known in detail. Then came 
the great ceremonial day. 

From Athens a great procession started carrying the 
sacred statue of lacchus, the son of Zeus and Demeter. 
Sacred emblems of the sorrow of Demeter and her search 



Ch. II.] The Religion of the Greeks 37 

for her daughter were carried in the procession like 
mediaeval relics. The journey of twelve miles took the 
whole of the day, for halts were made at many sacred 
spots ) and all through the noonday the procession 
was accompanied with lighted torches. And so at last 
the temple of the Mysteries was reached. The greater 
portion of the procession waited at the outer precinct ; 
only those to be initiated were admitted further. And 
into the temple of initiation they were not admitted until 
night; and then at last into the great hall the crowd 
was admitted, to see and hear amidst solemn silence 
what was put before them. 

And what was that ? In detail no one can answer : 
only I think the excavations upon the site of the great 
temple and the arguments of those who have given special 
attention to the matter clearly prove that they saw, 
upon a raised platform at the end of the hall, some 
quasi-dramatic representation of the legend of Demeter 
and her daughter. There were, we are told, " hymns and 
sacred dances and mimical scenes and sudden apparitions, 
accompanied by solemn words and disciplinary precepts 
pronounced by the hierophants." There were two 
spectacles connected with the initiation — one for those 
who desired only to take the ordinary course, one for 
those who at a year's interval desired full initiation- 
Both were of the same character apparently : mimetic 
representations of the life of Demeter and Persephone 
and the latter's son Zagreus. They were assisted by all 
the resources of the drama : gigantic figures appeared 
on the stage ; there were interchanges of darkness and 
the intensest light procurable. All would have appeared 
to modern eyes grossly superstitious, grotesque, and often 
obscene. Only the Athenian did not look at them with 



38 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. ll. 

modern eyes, any more than a Catholic of the middle 
ages looked at the elevation of the Host with the 
eyes of sceptical Protestantism. And doubtless the 
Greek worshipper gained from the spectacles of initiation 
much the same elevation of feeling and imagination that 
the devout Catholic obtained when, amidst the swinging 
of incense and the clanging of the bell and the blaze of 
candles upon the high altar, the Host was uplifted. 
And history is an unintelligible story if, in either 
case, the feelings of the pious worshipper deserve our 
contempt. 

And from the Mysteries for some more than a vague 
elevation of feeling was gained. There does not seem to 
have been any dogmatic teaching at all ; but to many of 
the worshippers the spectacle and the elucidatory com- 
ments of the priests clearly pointed to a vision of 
happiness in the next world ; and all believed that for 
the initiated there w^ere blessings in store that did not 
fall to the lot of ordinary mortals. It is of this happy 
future promised by the Eleusinian Mysteries that Pindar 
sings : " Ever in sunlight night and day an unlaborious 
life the good receive — neither with violent hand vex they 
the earth nor the waters of the sea in that new world ; 
but with the honoured of the gods, whosoever had 
pleasure in keeping of oaths they possess a tearless life ; 
but the other part suffer pain too dire to look upon.'' 

Some Considerations on the Influence of the 
Religion of Greece. 

As one reviews the history of Greece in relation to her 
religion, and in relation to the histories and religions of 
surrounding peoples, it becomes plain that the weakness 
and unsystematised character of her religion assisted 



Ch. II.] The Religion of the Greeks 39 

her intellectual development, and did not give adequate 
assistance to her moral life. For, firstly, the human 
nature of their deities, the absence of any authorised 
legends about them, and of any powerful priesthood to 
support their privileges, allowed the Greeks readily to 
disregard them when science or philosophy required it. 
It was notably different with the Jews. Their religion 
might seem, in a sense, to favour the growth of science. 
It spoke to them of an all-powerful deity ; it seems a 
small step from that conception to the recognition of the 
unity and universality of laws in nature. But, probably, 
the conception of Jehovah was too stupendous to allow 
of criticism and reflection. In Greece it was far other- 
wise. As the Greek worshipper looked into the face of 
his deity when he prayed instead of bowing down in 
abject submission, so, too, he looked with daring eyes 
into all that concerned the deities; and so the scientific 
movement was born in Greece without birth-pangs, and 
grew up almost without persecution. That science 
comes from Greece is one of the greatest of her many 
great claims to the gratitude of posterity. Yet there is 
also another side to the matter. As freedom of thought 
is one of the highest characteristics of Greek civilisation, 
so moral laxity is her greatest danger. By which I do 
not mean that the Greeks were specially prone to 
sensual excess or specially dishonest : on both points the 
openness of their life and character has perhaps led to 
some exaggeration. But as in their political life lack of 
unity and cohesion is the great vice, so in their 'moral 
life we note a lack of strenuousness and aim, a dispersion 
of the forces of life. The real unity of a people is to be 
found rather in common convictions and devotion to 
common objects than in any merely political bonds; and 



40 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. ii. 

these common convictions and objects the Greek people 
notoriously lacked. When Plato in his Republic is 
sketching the outlines of an ideal state, very much in his 
propositions may be traced to a desire to implant that 
strenuousness the absence of which he deplored in 
democratic Athens. And his central institution bears a 
singular analogy to the social aspect of the mediaeval 
church. A body of guardians is to be created, without 
family ties, so that they may devote themselves solely to 
the protection of the state, claiming the guidance of their 
fellow-citizens by virtue of a stern moral discipline, a 
complete education in philosophy and single-minded 
devotion to the state. If the conception of a church 
had been known to Plato's age he could hardly have 
failed to use the word here. 

Yet, on the point of the moral anarchy of Greece, we 
must take care to avoid exaggeration. In Mr. Ernest 
Myers' words, it is necessary to maintain that to the 
Hellenes "life could be more than a brilliant game or a 
garden of sweet sights and sounds, where beauty and 
knowledge entered, but goodness was forgotten and shut 
out." Of which no other proof need be given than this, 
that moral philosophy was the invention of the Greeks, 
and that they, first of Western peoples, applied reason 
and scientific thought to the regulation of the conduct of 
life. 



Note. — P^or the religion of Greece generally see Maury's Les 
Religions de la Grece. In Hellenica (see note to last chapter) there 
is an article on " Greek Oracles," by F. W. H. Myers. Curtiusand 
Grote both give an account of the Olympian games and their 
influence. Pindar's Poems will give the best idea of their im- 
portance. The translation used in this chapter is by Ernest Myers 
(Macmillan & Co.). On the difficult question of the Eleusinian 



Ch. II.J 



The Religion of the Greeks 



41 



Mysteries there are three articles by Lenormant in the Contemporary 
Review (May, July, and September, 1880). The legends of Greece 
are prosaically given and acutely criticised in the first part of Grote, 
But Curtius has given more attention to the influence of the religion 
of Greece upon her development. 




Plain of Olympia. 




Plain of Sparta. 



CHAPTER III. 



SPARTA. 



Each city state in Greece desired to remain completely 
independent, recognising neither the superiority nor the 
guidance of any other state. But this ideal was not 
attainable. The self-assertion that was the main root of 
this ideal naturally tried to satisfy itself by dominion 
over others, and not always without success. Besides 
the geographical position, the political and intellectual 
development of certain cities necessarily gave them such 
superiority over others that, either by coercion or agree- 
ment, they soon assumed a leadership in their districts. 
For a full understanding of Greek history it is necessary 
to know something of the history and character of a large 
number of these prominent states. But in such a sketch 



4a 



Ch. III.] Sparta 43 

as this little book attempts it will be enough to glance 
at a very few of the most important. And the most im- 
portant are Athens, Sparta, Argos, Corinth, and Thebes. 
Athens will occupy most of our thoughts in subsequent 
chapters, and will therefore find no place in this. Of 
the remaining four, Sparta claims far the most of our 
attention. The rivalry of Athens and Sparta, and the 
reaction of one upon the other, is indeed one of the 
most prominent influences of nearly the whole of Greek 
history. We will turn then at once to Sparta. 

The Position and Early History of Sparta. 

There is in Thucydides a prophecy that has been very 
literally fulfilled. ^'Suppose the city of Sparta to be 
deserted and nothing left but the temples and the ground 
plan, distant ages would be very unwilling to believe 
that the power of the Lacedaemonians was at all equal 
to their fame. Their city is not regularly built and has 
no splendid temples or other edifices \ it rather resembles 
a straggling village. Whereas if the same fate befell the 
Athenians, the ruins of Athens would strike the eye, and 
we should infer their power to have been twice as great 
as it really is." A ruin more entire than Thucydides 
dreamed of fell in process of time upon both Sparta and 
Athens ; but now, while in Athens the Acropolis still 
bears aloft the ruins of its stately temples, and the whole 
city, at the distance of 2300 years, is still full of the 
relics of her former greatness, there has been, until 
quite recent times, some doubt as to the spot on the 
banks of the Eurotas where Sparta stood; and recent 
excavations, though they have fixed the site of the city, 
have revealed little more than a Roman theatre, a tomb, 
and a sarcophagus. 



44 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. ill. 

The area of Greece is too small to allow of large rivers, 
and the lack of a good water supply has always been the 
great agricultural drawback of the country. What streams 
there were, therefore, were much valued; and the river 
Eurotas was certainly the first cause of the foundation 
of the city of Sparta. The river flows down from the 
mountains of Arcadia, at first through a narrow gorge, 
and then through a widening plain of eighteen miles 
in length, with an average breadth of four or five. It 
is nowhere larger than the Devonshire Dart, which, in 
many respects, it resembles ; but it is to this river that 
the plain owes its fertility. Upon the west side of Sparta 
rose the great mountain mass of Taygetus, some 8000 
feet in height, and from all sides except from the 
south Sparta was approached by mountain passes, 
which made it possible for her citizens to boast that the 
city needed no walls or other defences than the arms of 
her citizens. But far beyond the valley of the Eurotas 
the Spartans had extended their sway. Westward, they 
had, in a series of campaigns fought in the dim dawn 
of history, gained possession of Messenia, the most 
fertile plain in Greece. Northward, they had driven 
the Arcadians back into their mountain fastnesses, and 
had torn from them some of their most fertile valleys. 
And upon the east their Argive kinsmen had yielded to 
the superior force of their arms a rich strip of their 
territory. 

There had been a time when the Peloponnese had 
known nothing of this strenuous people. Homer's pages 
do not tell us of Dorian settlers in hollow Laceda3mon. 
At that indeterminable epoch the Dorians had lived in 
the north of Greece, and the non-Dorian had been the 
most powerful race in the Peloponnese. But the dim 



Ch. III.] Sparta 45 

light that is all we have to see by for many genera- 
tions after Homer's sun is set, is enough to allow us to 
see great changes. From the highlands of Thessaly the 
Dorians force their way southward, probably across the 
Corinthian Gulf into the Peloponnese. All gives way 
before them, and that not only in consequence of the 
racial superiority of the new-comers. It is clear they 
had superiority in arms as well. Their battles are not 
the confused melee of the Homeric poems, in which the 
spear is used only as a missile weapon. Now the spear 
is the chief weapon, and the shield has become smaller 
and is fastened upon the arm. A severer discipline and 
a steadier drill are enforced, and so the Achaeans of 
Homer, with all the rich civilisation of which Schlie- 
mann found such remarkable relics in the tombs of 
Mycenae, give way and almost disappear, and the domi- 
nant race of the Peloponnese is the Dorian. And of 
the Dorians the Spartans are chief. That the Spartans 
were alien invaders, holding what they held by the right 
of the stronger, was a fact never forgotten by themselves 
or their subjects. It is a fact which colours and helps to 
account for the whole of their history and organisation. 

As soon as ever we are able to look at the population 
of the Eurotas valley, we find that it is not homogeneous, 
but falls into three divisions quite distinct from one 
another. First, there are the Spartans proper, the de- 
scendants of the original Dorian conquerors, the free- 
born and full citizens of Sparta. Secondly, come the 
Perioeci, '*the dwellers around," the free population of 
the country that did not possess citizenship. Lastly, 
there are the Helots or serfs. 

It was the full-born Spartans of the first division who 
alone were regarded as composing the state. They were 



46 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. in. 

never more than ten thousand, and in historical times 
much fewer. But all the institutions of the land regarded 
them only. The other sections of the population were 
in absolute submission to them. In this chapter we are 
mainly concerned with them, with their remarkable social 
discipline, and with their political institutions, and with 
their discipline more than their institutions. 

The Social Discipline of Sparta. 

To begin with, let us note two characteristics in the 
state — the complete subordination of the individual to 
the state and the all-engrossing pursuit of military 
objects. 

The first has already been noticed as, to some extent, 
a characteristic of all Greek states, as being indeed com- 
prised in the Greek idea of a state. But nowhere is 
the idea so fully worked out as at Sparta. The glory of 
Sparta and the safety of Sparta are everything. Com- 
pared to this the affections or the interests of individual 
citizens did not count at all. Brasidas^ mother would 
not be comforted at his death by those who told her that 
Sparta possessed no other citizen of such mark. The 
mother might be pleased with the phrase, but the Spartan 
must rather hope that there were many others greater 
and better than he. No anecdote is better known than 
that of the Spartan mother w^ho bids her son return 
either with his shield or upon it ; that is, either victorious 
or dead. Patriotism crushing the softer emotions is the 
point to be noted in both stories. Even more character- 
istic in Sparta is the complete absorption in military 
pursuits. In that age, as was pointed out in our first 
chapter, all civilisation rested on a military basis, all 
states pursued military greatness as their main goal. 



Ch. III.] Sparta 47 

But while most other states were sometimes enticed by 
other objects, while Athens, at any rate in practice, 
devoted herself to art and thought even more than to 
war. Sparta never swerved aside. Soldiership was here 
the highest and the only idea of manhood. No art, 
no science, no virtue, no affection, was prized unless it 
contributed directly to military excellence. The whole 
state was indeed a camp under arms. 

To achieve this military ideal the whole of the Spartan's 
life, from the cradle to the grave, was subjected to state 
supervision and the most rigorous discipHne. That the 
Spartan might be nothing else but a soldier, he was not 
allowed to travel, lest he should catch the mercantile or 
artistic contamination of other lands. A similar reason 
induced the state in its earher period to forbid to its 
citizens all use of money, except in so heavy and cumbrous 
a form as effectually to check the operations of exchange 
and commerce. There was at one time, we are told, a 
law^ which made the possession of gold and silver a 
capital offence. The law w^as indeed either abrogated or 
never applied. It illustrates, however, the tendency of 
the Spartan state. 

But the strenuousness of the Spartans w^ill be best 
illustrated if w^e follow in some detail the discipline 
imposed upon every Spartan citizen. 

This discipline began with birth. Immediately after 
the child had seen the light it was visited by Spartan 
elders, to examine w^hether it were in any w^ay deformed 
or obviously unhealthy. If so, the child must not be 
allowed to grow up " a feeble wielder of the lance," or to 
be the mother of children inheriting perhaps her own 
w^eakness. It was therefore immediately after birth 
exposed halfway up the side of Mount Taygetus, and 



48 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. hi. 

allowed to die almost before it had begun to live. Such 
was the summary method in which the Spartans, acting 
in accordance with a custom common to the ancient 
world, settled their population question. That custom 
was one of the most striking offences of the Pagan world 
against modern feeling, and its abolition was one of the 
great services of early Christianity. The Spartan method 
at any rate solved a problem which we are as yet content 
to ignore. If the child were healthy it was given back to 
its parents, and for seven years remained in the care of 
its mother, but not in her unguided care. The state 
prescribed that it should be immersed in a bath of wine. 
Its swaddling clothes did not escape the eye of the state. 
They must not be so long or so heavy as to interfere 
with the free action of the child's limbs. 

At the age of seven years the male child ceased to 
belong to its parents and became the child of the state. 
Until the age of thirty he was not regarded as having 
reached maturity, and through all these years lived a 
barrack life with strict regulations and under immediate 
supervision. The hair was close clipped, the feet were 
bare in the blazing summers and in the bitter winters 
of the Eurotas valley. Their single garment w^as not 
changed either for cold or heat. Their bed consisted 
of reeds from the banks of the Eurotas, which each 
boy must pull up with his own hands. In winter indeed 
a luxury was allowed. " They might add to their reeds," 
says Plutarch, " a herb called lycophon." Commen- 
tators are not agreed whether lycophon means moss 
or thistle-dow^n. Whichever it be, to modern minds 
their luxuries will seem more austere than their hard- 
ships. 

They fed together in barracks. The mess was divided 



Ch. III.] Sparta 



Ar^ 



into separate tables, at each of which about six were 
accommodated. And those who fed at each table were 
friends, for at each vacancy the new-comer was balloted 
for by the rest. And those who fed at the same table 
fought side by side in battle. Their friendship would 
increase the shame of cowardice and the glory of suc- 
cessful exertion. The food at these tables was of the 
coarsest, though sufficient in quantity. But all were 
encouraged to hunt the game that was plentiful on Tay- 
getus, and the catch was added to the meal. A more 
doubtful statement affirms that the boys were encouraged 
to steal from the tables of their seniors, with the fall 
understanding that if they were caught they would be 
severely punished. It is not impossible. Such a custom 
would closely reproduce the conditions of provisioning 
in war. 

Through the whole of this disciplinary period of their 
lives there was something analogous to the monitorial 
system of a public school. The younger submitted 
themselves to the direction of the elder, who by the task 
of command learnt the necessity of obedience. Along 
with all the life that has here been described there went 
constant mihtary drilling, as well as constant exercise in 
boxing, wrestling, and all sorts of gymnastics. Writing 
in a much later age, Plutarch tells us of a custom that 
had lasted down to his own time. Once in their lives 
the boys were flogged at the altar of Artemis Orthia, 
not for any offence committed, but as a training in 
endurance. " I have seen many of them perish under 
the scourge at the altar," says Plutarch. 

The character of the whole training is clear. '' To 
manifest a daring and pugnacious spirit ; to sustain the 
greatest bodily torture unmoved ; to endure hunger, cold, 

4 



50 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. ill. 

and fatigue ; to tread the worst ground barefoot ; to wear 
the same garment winter and summer ; to suppress ex- 
ternal manifestations of feeling ; and to exhibit in public, 
when action was not called for, a bearing shy, silent, and 
motionless as a statue, — all these were the virtues of the 
accomplished Spartan youth." Such are the words in 
which Grote sums up the ideal existence of a Spartan 
youth. A life of terrible and repellent severity, a life in 
which the object of living had been lost sight of, such 
it must appear to us, and such indeed it was. Yet it was 
by no means entirely without its compensations and con- 
solations. If we read Plutarch's Life of Lycurgus, where 
better than anywhere else we shall find the Spartan 
life mirrored, we shall feel occasionally the breath of joy 
that there was in this robust life, the joy of hunting upon 
the mountain side, the joy of the barrack festivals, when 
song and mirth proclaimed the devotion of all citizens to 
the state. And there was too the high and austere joy 
of the abandonment of all individual desires and their 
dedication to a common object. 

At the age of thirty manhood was attained, but by no 
means complete individual liberty. No longer now did 
the Spartan live exclusively in barracks. He might at 
last know what family life meant. And family life was 
indeed enjoined upon him. " There were penalties in 
Sparta,'' says Plutarch, " for not marrying, and for late 
marrying, and for marrying amiss, and under the last 
head they brought more especially the case of those who 
sought rich connections, instead of good ones among 
their own kin." Upon one day in the year all bachelors 
above a certain age were summoned to the great square, 
and then, arranged in order, they marched through the 
city, while the women and boys sang songs in mockery of 



Ch. III.] Sparta 5 1 

their condition. What the effect of this custom was upon 
the marriage rate we are not told. 

And though after thirty family Hfe was possible to the 
Spartan, he was still a soldier first and a husband or a 
father after. Still there was drilling and reviewing and 
discipHne ; and these were of so severe a character that 
we can well believe that the declaration of war came as a 
relief. Instead of an increase of the rigour of discipline 
there was in time of war a relaxing of it, and thus war 
came to be regarded as a sort of holiday. 

Nowhere in Greece had women a better position than 
in Sparta — a position more open, more free, more 
influential. Good soldiers must have healthy mothers, 
and therefore the physique of the women was not dis- 
regarded by the state. They underwent a gymnastic 
training of their own '* in running, wrestling, hurling 
quoits and javelins," And, as in early Rome, the capacity 
of women to influence men to warlike energy was fully 
recognised. The women of Sparta were never, like their 
Athenian sisters, buried in an almost Oriental seclusion. 
They moved freely among the men, and were seen openly 
and unveiled in the streets. In the festivals they mixed 
freely with the men. Athenian prejudices were scandalised 
by all this, but it probably resulted in strength to the 
state, though later on the Spartan women are said to 
have degenerated in character, and to have often exercised 
a pernicious influence. The respect paid to them helps 
to give to Sparta that almost Roman cohesion which 
Athens lacked. They shared in the sternness of the 
state : an unbroken regulation forbade, after a battle, all 
female lamentation for the dead, lest men should deem 
it an evil thing to die fighting for the state. 



52 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. hi. 

The Political Institutions of Sparta. 

Compared with the social discipline, the constitution 
of Sparta is uninteresting and unimportant, and must here 
be only summarily dealt with. But it is not without its 
striking features, and, like the social discipline, reveals the 
character of the Spartan state — an army encamped among 
enemies, so that military strictness was necessary to 
survival. 

If we may regard the Homeric poems as mirroring in 
any way the civilisation contemporary with the poet, we 
may conjecture that in that early and indeterminate 
period all states in Greece were monarchies. The 
monarch holds his place not by heredity alone, but by 
the right of the worthiest, whether expressed in physical 
strength or counsel in war. He is assisted by a council 
of chieftains, who seem to advise and sometimes to 
dictate. Before the great questions, such as peace or 
war, were decided, the whole body of citizens had to be 
summoned, without debate, to vote ^^aye" or '^no." If 
this was the primitive constitution of Greece, as other 
evidence besides that of the Homeric poems leads us to 
believe, no state had deviated from it so little as Sparta. 
And that we should have expected, for her whole exist- 
ence is steeped in the strongest conservative spirit. Else- 
where in Greece, with hardly an exception, the monarchy 
had gone. In Sparta it still remained. But here the 
monarchy has been duplicated ; there is not one king, 
but two. This arrangement finds no exact parallel in 
the constitutional history of Europe. Nor is it of any 
importance for us to balance against one another the 
arguments for the various theories that have been 
advanced to account for it. Whether it arose from a 
prehistoric amalgamation of different races, or from the 



Ch. III.] Sparta 53 

rivalry of two families, or from an accident of birth, or 
from aristocratic statecraft, enough for our purposes that 
we find two families always contributing a king to the 
state. And whatever the origin of the system, the result 
is clear : it destroyed the reality of the monarchy. Their 
position usually made the kings jealous rivals, and as they 
possessed equal powers, the monarchy was constantly 
reduced to a deadlock which the other sections of the 
community used to their own advantage. The kings 
were the religious representatives of the state, the nominal, 
and sometimes the real, commanders of the army. But 
they were really far less important in the state than the 
Ephors, of whom more shortly. And nothing will show 
the simplicity of the Spartan state more than the privi- 
leges which were allowed them. At the public feasts a 
double portion of food was set aside for them. They 
might absent themselves from the mess, but in that case 
only half their portion was sent out to them. 

Next came the council of elders. It consisted of 
twenty-eight members over sixty years of age, elected by 
the people for life, and the two kings were ex-officio 
members. The duties of this council were to prepare 
all measures that were brought before the people, and 
to act as a court of criminal justice. And next to the 
council was the popular assembly — all citizens of pure 
birth who had submitted to the discipline of the state 
belonged to it. Once every month they were of necessity 
called together, and at such other times as the Ephors 
or kings thought fit. The election of all officers was in 
their hands. And though no discussion was allowed, all 
questions of importance, especially the question of war 
or peace, were submitted to them as the final authority. 
We may not regard them as a very powerful body, but it 



54 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. hi. 

was by their vote that the Peloponnesian war, the great 
tragedy of Greece, was opened. 

So far, there seems no strength in the Spartan con- 
stitution. We ^ see a monarchy hardly more powerful 
than the British, a senate without final authority of any 
sort, a popular assembly dependent for its calling together 
upon that council, and incapable of any discussion. So 
far there is insufficient motive power for any state ; cer- 
tainly for an aggressive military state like Sparta. The 
necessary motive power was supplied by the Eph orate, 
the real government of Sparta and the most striking 
invention of the state. All history proves that no military 
policy can be carried on successfully if the actual manage- 
ment of the state be in the hands of Parliament or 
Senate or debating assembly. For war it is before all 
things necessary that the executive should be able to act 
with secrecy and rapidity. And hence all free constitu- 
tions have found themselves forced, under pressure of 
a great w^ar, to draw a veil over the face of liberty. In 
Sparta the constitution of the Ephorate gave to the state 
this necessary secrecy and rapidity. 

Every year by public vote five citizens, called Ephors, 
were elected, and into the hands of these five men ab- 
solute and irresponsible powder was given for the space 
of a year. This abdication of power by the whole body 
of the citizens into the hands of five of their own number 
could hardly be understood if we did not remember the 
situation of the Spartan state, surrounded by a population 
whose hostility they made no attempt to conciliate. To 
these Ephors the kings were entirely subordinate. Upon 
their approach the kings rose. Yearly the kings took an 
oath to observe the constitution, and the Ephors then 
promised to uphold their throne. They were allowed 



Ch. III.] Sparta 55 

to fine and imprison the kings, and used their power 
even against so powerful a king as Agesilaus. Though 
the kings were nominally the commanders of the army, 
the Ephors accompanied them upon all campaigns, to 
watch them, to check them, to ^report to the authorities 
at home anything that looked like incapacity or treason. 
They had in their hands all the relations of Sparta with 
foreign powers. Upon their shoulders rested the re- 
sponsibility for internal quiet. In their management 
was the system of secret police whereby the surrounding 
masses of hostile peoples w^ere kept in awe. 

If we look back upon this constitution we see that 
Sparta is a democracy, if we use the word in its modern 
sense, to imply that the voting powder was in the hands 
of all citizens. But in Greece democracy meant more 
than that ; it meant the direct exercise of power by 
the people themselves, and not by their elected officers. 
And therefore Sparta is alw^ays spoken of as an oligarchy, 
for the hereditary kingship and the life tenure of office 
by the councillors and the unlimited authority of the 
Ephors curbed the power of the people and contradicted 
the democratic ideal. 

The Subject Populations of Sparta. 

The Spartans proper w^ere by far the most important 
section of the Spartan state, but numerically they w^ere 
an insignificant minority. They w^ere outnumbered both 
by the Perioeci and the Helots. The former w^ere the 
free population of Spartan territory w^ho had not full 
citizen rights. They were descendants of those earlier 
masters of Lacedaemon w^ho had been subdued by the 
Spartans. Their personal liberty remained, though they 
were not allowed to share in any way in the government 



56 » Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. hi. 

of the city. There are, of course, no accurate statistics 
as to their number, but they were probably about three 
times as numerous as the Spartans proper. Most of the 
trade of Sparta was in their hands. A certain amount 
of ironwork, some manufacture of woollen goods, was 
carried on by them. They were taxed by the Spartans. 
They served in war as heavy-armed troops, and were 
often harshly treated by their governors. Under ordinary 
circumstances they seem to have lived a free, quiet, and 
industrious life, but deprived of that share in the rights 
of citizenship without which, to the true Greek, a full 
life was impossible. They chafed against their position, 
but we hardly hear of any insurrection, for they, equally 
with the Spartans, were permanently threatened by the 
bitterly discontented and really dangerous class of Helots. 

At first sight there seems no sufficient cause for the 
bitter discontent of these Helots. Technically, they stood 
upon a better footing than most of the hand-workers 
of Greece. They were not slaves : they could not be 
bought and sold. They stood economically near to the 
serfs of the middle ages. They cultivated the land and 
were bound to it. Of the produce of the land they paid 
a certain large proportion to their masters, but what 
remained was their own. It was possible, therefore, for 
them to accumulate some money. Legitimate marriage 
was possible to them ; family life was probably more 
possible to them than to their Spartan masters. They 
shared in the religion of the state. According to the 
ideas of the time, their position was neither unjust nor 
intolerable. And yet no class in Greece chafed more 
against their position than the Helots. 

For their position, halfway between liberty and slavery, 
was a peculiarly irritating and tantalising one. They 



Ch. III.] Sparta 57 

perhaps possessed some tradition of a time when they 
were free, and looked on the Spartans as their dis- 
possessors. Moreover there was in the Spartan char- 
acter a rawness and harshness that made even fair 
relations to them intolerable, just as there was in the 
Athenians a geniality and reasonableness which made 
their slaves as contented a race of men as was to be 
found in Greece. 

And there were in the life of the Helot certain terrible 
possibilities that quite explain their restiveness. We need 
lay little stress on such grotesque details as Plutarch's 
story that it was a Spartan custom to make Helots drunk 
in public that they might serve as warnings to the Spartan 
youth. It is more important to notice that the system 
of secret police {crypteia) was devised against them. At 
the beginning of every year war was declared against 
them, that their murder might not bring blood-guiltiness 
upon the state. Year by year a certain number of young 
men put themselves, as secret police, under the direction 
of the Ephors. It was their duty to go into the country 
districts to spy out any discontent or designs of insurrec- 
tion that might lurk there ; and if any Helots seemed to 
entertain designs contrary to the interests of the state, 
they were at once to be put to death without form of 
trial. An incident in the eighth year of the Pelo- 
ponnesian war does not allow us to believe that the 
system of secret police was a mere threat. In that 
terrible struggle the Spartans were forced to give to the 
Helots not only the light arms with which they usually 
accompanied their masters to battle, but the full panoply 
of the heavy-armed soldier. To put such weapons into 
the hands of so hostile a population was clearly a great 
danger, and a danger that must be met. How it was 



58 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. ill 

met Thucydides shall tell. "They proclaimed that a 
selection would be made of those Helots who claimed 
to have rendered the best service to the Lacedaemonians 
"in the war, and promised them liberty. The announce- 
ment was intended to test them ; it was thought that 
those among them who were foremost in asserting their 
freedom would be most high-spirited and most likely to 
rise against their masters. So they selected about two 
thousand, who were crowned with garlands, and went 
in procession round the temple ; they were supposed to 
have received their liberty, but not long afterwards the 
Spartans put them all out of the way, and no man knew 
how any of them came to their end.'^ 

The Results of the Spartan System. 

It only remains to consider the results of the whole 
system upon the Spartan state. 

I. It gave Sparta a great military success. No one 
questioned their claim to be regarded as the greatest 
soldiers in Greece. Though the Greeks were not the 
nation of cowards that they have been paradoxically 
represented, and performed many great feats of arms, 
they did not certainly display any great military genius. 
Not to put them into competition with Rome, the greatest 
military state of all time, it is clear that they lacked the 
uneducated valour of the Macedonian, and did not dis- 
play the coolness and tenacity of many modern peoples. 
Greatest among their military shortcomings was their 
tendency to panic. This tendency the Spartans almost 
alone among Greeks managed to overcome. No instance 
of tumultuous flight is recorded of them. They remained 
at Thermopylae to face certain death rather than disgrace 
the Spartan name. When at last, in 371, the hour 



Ch. III.] Sparta 59 

of their doom struck, and the battles of Leuctra and 
Mantinea overthrew once for all their claims to invin- 
cibility, it was by a new tactic that they were overthrown, 
not by any superiority of physical courage in the enemy 
or any failure of nerve on their own side. 

They were excellent soldiers, but they never showed 
that genius for war and organisation that characterises the 
Romans. They were never willing to open the ranks of 
citizenship to the conquered people. They did not even 
produce the great generals of Greece. In the develop- 
ment of the military art that leads up to Alexander the 
Great, Athenians and Boeotians have a greater share than 
Spartans. 

2. And while the soldier was cultivated with such 
success, the man was neglected. Sparta has no such 
memories as Athens, or even as Thebes or Argos. From 
her come neither philosophers nor artists nor inventors nor 
poets. A certain greatness of character no one will be 
able to deny to the Spartans, and greatness of character 
is after all the highest product of a state. But the 
intellect and the imagination were starved. Martial 
poetry was allowed by their scheme of life, and they 
knew and valued the power of music to stimulate 
courage and the spirit of adventure. But from Sparta 
there came no intellectual or imaginative product that 
the world will not willingly let die. Their wit was 
indeed celebrated in antiquity. Nothing is so evanescent 
in its interest as wit, and we therefore cannot expect to 
catch all the aroma of jokes 2500 years old. Many of 
the witty sayings attributed to Spartans amount only to 
brutal rudeness. To some one who inquires, '' Who is the 
best man in Sparta ? " the Spartan wag answ^ers, '' He who 
is least like you.'' An Athenian reproached a Spartan for 



6o Greece in the Age of Pe?ides [Ch. ill. 

his ignorance, and met the retort, ''It is true that we are 
ignorant, for we are the only Greeks who have not learnt 
some mischief from you." Sometimes their wit exhibits 
a certain pithy shrewdness. It was told of Lycurgus 
that when he was asked why he did not establish a 
democracy in Sparta, he said, " First establish a demo- 
cracy in your own household." When a Spartan was 
asked how best to arrange means for defence, he replied, 
" By remaining poor and not each trying to be a greater 
man than the other." Occasionally their sayings have a 
really heroic ring, as that of the Spartan at Thermopylae 
who, when told that the Persian arrows flew so thick 
that the sun was obscured, replied that he preferred to 
fight in the shade. And again, when a bystander asks- 
an athlete, who comes from a contest dust-covered, 
blood-smeared, but victorious, what good he has got 
by all his exertions, he replies that he has gained the 
privilege of fighting in the hottest part of the battle. 
But on the whole we cannot rate Spartan wit very high. 
Jokes have doubtless their fates as well as books, and 
perhaps we have not got the best. But those that 
depend on intellect rather than character are certainly 
poor. 

3. Yet in Greece neither friends nor enemies denied 
Sparta's greatness. Men looked with wonder on her 
success in war and the stability of her society and consti- 
tution. Elsewhere the constitutional character of Greek 
states changed with kaleidoscopic variety. But Sparta 
seemed to remain unmoved from quite the dawn of 
history down to the fatal year 370 B.C., when at last an 
enemy's watch-fires were reflected in the Eurotas. "This 
state," says Plutarch, '* was by far the most celebrated in 
Greece for good government at home and renown abroad 



Ch. III.] Sparta 6i 

for the space of five hundred years." So great and 
universal was the recognition of Sparta's supremacy that 
it formed the basis for the united resistance of Greece to 
Persia, and at one time it seemed as though it might offer 
a possibiHty of a really united Greece. 

The eighteenth century of our era shared this enthu- 
siasm for Sparta. To those who were wearied With the 
luxury and corruption of France, Sparta seemed to offer 
an example of simplicity and austere morals, and at the 
same time to prove what might be done for a people by 
state direction. Sparta was adduced as a proof of the 
thesis that wi th the help of the laws you can make people 
what you like, and a prominent heroine of the Revolution 
wept to think that she had not been born in Sparta. The 
modern world can hardly share this enthusiasm. We have 
almost fully emerged from the military stage of society, 
and no longer regard soldiership as the ideal of manhood. 
And if we judge a state by its work for the progress of 
the human race, how small is our debt to Sparta compared 
with what we. owe to Athens ! Yet Sparta was in the 
Greek world a great moral force, and a perpetual protest 
against the moral anarchy that was Greece's greatest 
danger. The concentration of purpose, the austerity of 
life, the readiness of self-sacrifice for the highest ideal 
then known, that were so constantly exhibited by the 
Spartans, will always claim a measure of admiration. 

Argos. 

Sparta possessed the first place in Hellas by the 
common consent of nearly all states. But she had a 
neighbour who sulkily refused to yield it to her. That 
neighbour was Argos. Greece possesses no plain more 
rich in historical associations than the one in which 



62 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. hi. 

Argos was situated. Here the Homeric poems placed 
the chief cities of Greece ; here were " golden " Mycenae 
and '* well-walled '^ Tiryns, that have of recent years 
yielded up such marvellous results to the excavations of 
Dr. Schliemann. Since the days of Homer everything 
had be^. changed. The Dorian invasion had altered 
the whole map of Hellas. Argos, not less than Sparta, 
was held by the descendants of Dorian invaders. The 
gold of Mycenae had disappeared, the w^alls of Tiryns 
survived as little else than a curiosity. But however 
alien the new race might be to the stock of the Homeric 
heroes, Argos gained some glory from the fact that close to 
her w^as Mycenae, the capital of Agamemnon, King of Men. 
But Argos could appeal to something else in support of her 
primacy besides poetic legends and historic monuments. 
Argos w^as a w^ell-populated and healthy city; the hill 
that rose behind her formed an excellently defensible 
acropolis ; the plain, now so bare and w^aterless, w^as then 
reckoned among the most fertile in Greece. And Argos 
had a great past. She could boast of a King Phidon — 
whose doubtful date we may place about 750 b.c. — who had 
given a system of coinage, weights, and measures to Greece 
and organised the state. Trained to a high degree of 
efficiency, she had then been a really dangerous rival to 
Sparta ; and that rivalry had found expression in w^ar, and 
in war the Spartan discipline had told with deadly effect. 
The Spartan king, Cleomenes, had invaded the Argolic 
plain (520? B.C.). Argos herself had escaped, but her 
troops were defeated, the plain was ravaged, and Argos 
had for a time to submit to the erection of Tiryns as a 
separate city state in the hands of slaves who had revolted 
from Argos. It is impossible here to follow her history 
in detail. But the territory that Sparta seized kept the 



Ch. III.] Sparta 63 

wound open. During the struggle with the Persians 
she stood aloof from the defence of Hellas, because if 
she joined it it would be as an inferior to Sparta. After 
the Persian war she rapidly revived. Again the whole 
Argolic plain was hers. But still Sparta far outtopped 
her, and the great jealousy between Sparta and Argos 
is one of the permanent factors in Greek international 
poHtics. 

Corinth. 

Where the mountain system of the Peloponnese sank 
into the plain, and before the plain rose again into the 
mountain masses of Geraneia, Corinth stood. She too 
had played no small part in the drama of Greek history, 
just when that history first begins. Her situation marked 
her out for a commercial state. She had harbours both 
upon the east and the west of the Isthmus. There was 
an apparatus, a sort of tram line, for hauling ships across, 
thus allowing them to avoid the perils of a journey round 
Cape Matapan. Westward as well as eastward her com- 
merce might make its way, while most of the harbours 
of Greece opened only upon the east. And she used 
her topographical advantages to the full. P>om Corinth 
came all early improvements in shipbuilding. The 
trireme, the vessel driven by three banks of oars, was 
her invention. Before the commercial advances of 
Athens, to be noted in a subsequent chapter, Corinth 
had a more extensive and more lucrative commerce than 
any other state in Central Greece. Her colonies were 
to be found in all parts of the Hellenic world. Chief 
among them were Syracuse, the great island of Corcyra 
(Corfu), and the town of Epidamnus upon the mainland 
opposite. No state in Hellas seems so rapidly to have 
attained to a luxurious civilisation ; nowhere was the 



J 



64 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. hi. 

proportion of slaves to freemen so numerous. Here 
the whole of her interesting history must be omitted, 
except one point — her relation to Athens. At first 
there had been friendship between them, and during 
Athens' early struggle for liberty, Corinth had been her 
fast friend, and had refused to co-operate in the coercion 
of the nascent democracy. Then came the days when 
the history of Athens showed, in Herodotus' words,. 
'^ how excellent a thing is liberty." Her commerce 
advanced by leaps and bounds ; her settlements in the 
east and west cramped the action of Corinth. At last 
Corinth found herself hemmed in and almost strangled 
by Athens. In the Greek w^orld commercial competition 
was not nearly so strongly felt between individuals of the 
same state as it is with us, but between different states it 
was more open and more resented. And the successful 
commercial rivalry of Athens against Corinth turned the 
latter from a useful friend into a most dangerous foe. 
Later we shall see how the hostility of Corinth, more 
than any single cause, precipitated the Peloponnesian 
war. Here it is only necessary to say that, for the period 
of which this little book treats, Corinth may be regarded 
as the permanent foe of Athens. 

Thebes. 

Athens and Thebes were another pair of inveterate 
enemies. There lay between them the mountain range 
of Cithaeron as a clear and natural frontier. And their 
interests did not necessarily clash. Thebes was the 
complete mistress of the Boeotian plain, and had control 
therefore of considerable w^ealth and a large population. 
But the Boeotians were not an enterprising or an intel- 
lectual people. ** A Boeotian pig " passed as a proverb 



Ch. III.] Sparta 65 

in Greece, and Pindar and Epaminondas are almost the 
only prominent men that Boeotia produces during the 
time of Greece's independence. Thebes was not a 
colonising power, and she had no commercial ambitions. 
An alliance between herself and Athens seemed a natural 
policy for both states. But the vanity of the Greek 
states, their desire to stand alone, what Grote calls " the 
centrifugal tendency" of Hellas, made all Greek alliances 
precarious. And, in addition, there was another cause 
of friction. The little city of Platsea, in her struggle 
against the supremacy of Thebes, had thrown herself 
first upon the protection of Sparta, and, rejected by her, 
had cast in her lot with Athens. Thus Athens possessed 
a strip of territory which seemed naturally to belong to 
Thebes, and which would have belonged to Thebes had 
it not been for Athens' interference. The alliance be- 
tween Plataea and Athens brought little good to either 
party. It had one glorious moment on the battlefield 
of Marathon, and then, not sixty years later, brought 
extinction upon Platsea. And to Athens the alliance 
brought the unquenchable hostility of Thebes. The 
cession of Plataea, like the cession of Alsace and Lorraine, 
made peace between the two states impossible. 

Note. — Grote, Part II., ch. vi. Curtius, Book II., ch. i. But 
Plutarch's Life of Lycurgus will, better than anything else, give an 
insight into the spirit of the Spartan state. He has drawn from 
authorities contemporary with the great days of Sparta, and has 
thrown on his narrative a romantic colouring and sentiment. His 
Lives of Lysander and Agesilaus are also valuable for the light 
they throw upon the general character of Sparta. Chapter viii. 
of Walter Pater's Plato and Platonism gives a very sympathetic 
picture of Sparta. 




Bridge over the Eurotas. 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE EARLIER HISTORY OF ATHENS. 



The Situation of Athens. 



Athens failed in her attempt to spread her empire over 
the whole of Hellas. Her good and bad qualities com- 
bined to give victory in the great and suicidal struggle of 
the Peloponnesian war to her rival Sparta. But time has 
brought in its revenges. Except to the student of history, 
Sparta and the other states of Greece are little more than 
names ; while the name of Athens has become identical 
with the early history of civilisation. It was during the 
age of Pericles that this superiority in all that is best 
most clearly declared itself, and this must be my excuse 
for treating of Greek history henceforth almost exclusively 
from the Athenian standpoint. 

Byron calls Greece **Land of the mountains and the 
sea " ; and he has accurately chosen the two physical 

66 



Ch. IV.] The Earlier History of Athens 67 

features that are most prominent and had most in- 
fluence on the destinies of the people. The mountains 
divided Greece into a large number of separate geo- 
graphical units, and made possible the isolation of the 
city states of which we have already spoken ; the sea 
allowed easy communication between these separate city 
states. Both influences did much for Athens. Though 
Attica belongs to the mainland, she is more really con- 
nected with the islands of the JEgean sea than with her 
continental neighbours. Northward, westward, eastward 
the plain of Athens was shut in by mountain ranges, the 
peaks of w^hich reach, in many cases, the height of 
4000 feet. The road into Boeotia was through the 
high and difficult range of Cithaeron. Entry into the 
Peloponnese was barred by the ranges of Geraneia, that 
closed up the Isthmus from side to side. If we transport 
ourselves in imagination back into the period when roads 
were few and bad, and the mountains mentioned were 
held by states often hostile, we shall understand that 
intercourse with neighbours w^as neither easy nor always 
safe. But if the mountains were forbidding, the sea 
invited to travel and adventure. Not five m.iles from 
Athens was a good roadstead, Phalerum, and an excellent 
harbour, Piraeus. And the Athenian sailor would not 
have to strike out without compass for a land far out of 
sight. From island to island he might make his way, 
sheltering behind them if a storm came on, and so might 
find himself on the shores of Asia Minor without ever 
having lost sight of land. The destiny of Athens is 
stamped on the geography of Greece. If she extends her 
rule beyond the borders of Attica, it must be over the 
island states of the ^gean, not the cities of the mainland. 
Attica is not larger than a moderate-sized English 



68 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. iv. 

county, but it was the largest territory attached to any 
Greek city, with the exception of Sparta. The soil of 
Attica, according to modern ideas, is very poor ; and 
even in the age of Pericles, and according to the 
standards of the Greeks, it was not very rich. A great 
deal of it is covered with hills ; then for the most part 
well wooded, now treeless. There were three chief 
plains — the plain of Eleusis, the seat of the Mysteries, 
divided from Athens by Mount ^galeon ; the plain of 
Marathon, with the spurs of Mount Pentelicus separating 
it from the third plain, that of Athens herself. A modern 
writer has called Athens the most beautifully situated 
city in the world; and though the superlative could 
hardly have been used if it had not been for the 
great memories of Athens, it would be difficult to find 
any city of more beautiful physical surroundings. The 
plain is indeed now dry, and, except for the numerous 
olive trees, bare ; but the circle of mountains with beau- 
ful outlines, the sea that looks like a wide river between 
the island of Salamis and the mainland, and the clear 
atmosphere of which the Athenians were so justly proud, 
combine to make an almost unequalled panorama. And 
the situation had other qualities to recommend it than 
picturesqueness. Like so many Greek cities, it is near 
to the sea without being actually on it ; that is, it allowed 
the inhabitants to use the sea without being in fear of 
being raided by pirates. And it possessed an excellent 
hill-fort, the first essential of all early Greek cities, and 
doubtless the true cause of the foundation of Athens in 
this precise spot. There are several hills scattered in 
the centre of the plain ; Lycabettus, the highest, is 910 
feet high. The one actually chosen for the fortress, the 
Acropolis, is only 200 feet above the plain ; but its com- 



Ch. IV.] The Earlier History of Athens 69 

paratively low elevation was an advantage if the population ; 

wished hurriedly to take refuge from an invader. It was : 

easily defensible, for upon three sides it sank so per- i 

pendicularly to the plain that it hardly needed the extra j 

defence of a wall. On the fourth side, the west, the I 

descent was fairly steep, and could be readily so • 
strengthened as to be almost impregnable. The surface 

of the hill measured about 1000 feet by 500. Nearly I 

every city in Greece possessed its Acropolis or central I 

fort, but none was so admirably adapted for every pur- i 

pose, whether of adornment or defence, as this of ■ 

Athens. Immediately to the west of it, and almost I 

touching it, was a smaller mass of rock that is called the I 

Areopagus, or Hill of Mars. Still farther westward are \ 

other hills, of no very striking elevation, the most im- 1 
portant of which is the hill of the Pnyx, of which we 
shall have more to say further on. At first the iVcropolis 
was the city ; then a few houses clustered round its base ; 

then, as Athens grew and prospered, the city began to ] 

extend rapidly in a w^esterly direction, towards the 1 

Piraeus and the sea. But as the importance of the i 
Acropolis as a fortress decreased, its religious importance 

was rather augmented ; it remained to the last the real i 
centre and the most sacred spot of Athens. 

The soil, we have said, was poor. Flowers grew every- / 

where in abundance ; and the derivation that makes \ ■ 

Athens mean the place of flowers is- not without plausi- / j 

bility. But the soil was too thin for good corn crops ; V. J 

and, though probably the climate has somewhat changed / ' 

in the course of 2500 years, partly owing to the disap- 
pearance of the trees from the mountains, the lack of 
water was always felt, and agricultural operations were 

only possible by means of irrigation. The chief product 1 



yo Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. IV. 

of the land was the olive tree ; and the export of the oil 
was one of the main sources of the wealth of Athenian 
farmers. Fish was caught plentifully on the coasts, and 
formed the staple article of diet. Meat was rarely eaten. 
The land was owned, in small farms, by Athenian citi- 
zens, who for the most part resided on their own land. 
It was not till much later that the residence in the town 
became the rule and country life the rare exception. 
But even in the earliest period a large proportion of the 
labour must have been done by slaves. Of industry, 
in the modern sense of the word, of course there was 
nothing ; but the artisans of Attica had some celebrity 
beyond their own country. Athenian pottery and 
Athenian shoes were exported widely through the Hellenic 
world. Later, a large district of Athens was given up to 
the potters, and took its name from them. 

What were the chief stages in the development of the 
life of Athens, social and political and intellectual, up to 
the appearance of Pericles ? That is the question that 
I shall endeavour to answer in the briefest possible 
space. 

The Legislation of Solon. 

It is certain that Athens, to begin with, was a monarchy. 
The monarchy was changed into a republic, not by any 
sudden revolution, but by a slow process of encroachment 
and undermining. The name of king indeed never 
disappeared from Athens, though the officer who bore 
that name was in the age of Pericles one of the least 
important functionaries of the state. This encroachment 
was not in the interest of the people at large, but solely 
of the privileged class of the nobles (Eupatrids). If we 
adopt the uncertain chronology of the period, it was in 



72 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. IV. 

• 
1066 B.C. that Codrus, the last king, died. The change 

that followed is doubtful. It seems only a change in 
name, for though the ruler of the state is now called 
archon, he holds office for life and must belong to the 
royal family. It is a safe assumption that the nobles 
had some part in the selection of the individual who was 
to occupy the post. In 752 B.C. the duration of the 
office of archon was limited to ten years. In 712 
it was thrown open to all the Eupatrids. In 683 the 
most important change was introduced. Nine archons 
selected from the Eupatrids, and each holding office for 
one year only, stepped into the place of the single 
archon. The meaning of these changes is perfectly 
clear. The monarchy has gradually disappeared ; an 
oligarchical dictatorship has taken its place. The 
change that passed over England between the Tudors 
and the Hanoverians is very analogous in reality though 
not in form. 

But by the end of the century the rule of the nobles 
that had lasted so long was attacked on two sides. The 
seventh century B.C. had been full of changes for Hellas. 
It was the era of colonisation. Cities that have now 
dwindled into paltry villages sent out colonies as far 
as the Black Sea and Sicily. Maritime enterprise de- 
veloped. Commerce increased rapidly. Coined money 
was introduced. Greek life lost entirely the patriarchal 
complexion that it wears in the pages of Homer. In 
every state in Greece the seventh century was an age of 
unrest. In Attica the difficulties arose from two sources. 
In the first place, as commerce developed, a class of 
merchants, rich according to the ideas of the time, rose 
up side by side with the Eupatrid nobles, whose wealth 
rested on the land. This merchant class found itself 



Ch. IV.] The Earlier History of Athens 73 

excluded from all share in the government, from all share 
in the direction of the state, and grumbled in con- 
sequence. And the farmers of Attica meanwhile had a 
heavier grievance than this. Since the introduction of 
coined money into the Greek world, it had become the 
necessity of all classes. And at first the farmers could 
only obtain it by borrowing from the rich men of Athens. 
They borrowed at an exorbitant rate of interest ; they 
mortgaged their lands, and in many parts of Attica were 
to be seen the pillars announcing the mortgage. But 
further, and worst of all, if their land did not suffice to 
pay the debt, the farmers had themselves to become the 
slaves of the money-lender. And this had happened on 
a large scale. Many men, once free farmers and the 
backbone of the land, were now either tilling those 
lands as the slaves of a money-lender, or sold into 
slavery in a foreign country. This widespread discontent, 
partly political, but mainly social, was not unknown in 
other Greek states. Elsewhere it had often produced the 
establishment of '^ tyrannies." By the word '^ tyrant " the 
Greeks did not mean a cruel man nor an oppressive 
ruler : they meant simply a personal ruler, whose power, 
resting on a command of physical force, was unsup- 
ported by law or custom, and without limitations or 
conditions. In Megara, in Sicyon, in Corinth, men had 
seized this position by putting themselves forward as 
champions of the discontented, and then held by force a 
position that they had gained by fraud. Already such an 
attempt had been made in Athens. Cylon had seized 
the Acropohs with the help of foreign mercenaries, and 
seemed to have accomplished his end. But the whole 
state had risen against him. He had been obliged 
to flee, and his followers had been put to death (620). 



74 Greece i7i the Age of Pericles [Ch. iv. 

The discontent was not thereby abated, and a renewal of 
the attempt with better success seemed highly probable. 

It is due entirely to the high personal qualities of Solon 
that the attempt was not made. Solon is, in every re- 
spect, the most remarkable of the lawgivers of Greece. 
He belongs to a period when the religion of Greece had 
undisputed sway, before the inevitable advent of criticism 
had deprived Greece of a central spiritual power. His 
work receives the sanction of the oracle of Delphi. The 
era of specialisation had not begun. Solon is land- 
owner and merchant, philosopher and statesman, poet 
and athlete. There is no department of Greek life to 
which he does not direct his attention. Of his poetry 
something has come down to us in Plutarch ; more in the 
recently discovered work of Aristotle. His verses give us 
a record of his work as a lawgiver in Athens. They are 
written throughout with elevation and dignity, but con- 
tain nothing which would not later on have been expressed 
in prose. His whole work bears the stamp of the purest 
patriotism. It seeks the advantage of no class, and brought 
him personally neither wealth nor power. What Alfred the 
Great is for English history, that was Solon for Greek. 

In 594 B.C. he was elected archon, with special powers 
to make laws and to heal the divisions of the state. His 
friends had urged him to make himself tyrant ; even the 
Delphian oracle had given countenance to the idea. The 
temptation was great and the prize easily obtainable ; 
but Solon remained true to the task for which he had 
been elected. The social difficulties were the most press- 
ing. First Solon annulled all debts whatever.* In this, 

* It was formally doubtful whether he annulled all debts, or only 
those contracted on land ; but from the new Aristotle it seems clear 
that all debts were annulled. 



Ch. IV.] The Earlier History of Athens 75 

according to modern ideas, there must have been con- 
siderable injustice. But the interest had been so high 
and the bitterness against the lenders so great that the 
arrangement was apparently readily accepted. Next he 
forbade for the future all loans in which the person of the 
borrower was made security for repayment. 

His political arrangements are for us more important. 
Firstly he so distributed the power and the burdens of 
the state that to wealth fell the heaviest responsibilities 
as well as the greatest authority. The population was 
already divided into four classes, according to the amount 
of their landed property. This classification Solon used 
as the basis for his constitution. All citizens possessed 
an equal vote in the election of all officers. But to the 
highest office, the archonship, only members of the 
richest class were eligible, and the fourth class was 
excluded from the tenure of all office. But if poverty 
was a bar to office it was also a security against taxation, 
and the taxes were so graduated that not only did the 
richest pay most, but they paid a larger proportion of their 
wealth than their poorer fellow-citizens. The poorest 
class was entirely free from taxation. 

The next product of Solon's genius was the Council of 
400. The free population of Attica was already divided 
into four tribes. Solon arranged that each tribe should 
elect a hundred of its number to serve on the council for 
a year ; and to this office the members of the first three 
property classes were alone eligible. Into the hand of 
this council was given the real government of the state. 
It, or some portion of it, sat the whole year through. 
Home and foreign affairs, finance, and police were in 
its hands. 

Two other institutions of the Athenian state yet remain 



76 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. IV. 

to be mentioned. And first we come to the general 
assembly of the people. Some such assembly there must 
always have been, even in the days of the monarchy and 
the undisputed sway of the nobles. We do not know of 
any changes in procedure that. were introduced by Solon. 
But, since all offices were now elective, the actual im- 
portance of the popular assembly must very much have 

. increased. 

/ And lastly we must mention the revered Council of the 
Areopagus. There was no spot of Athenian soil more 
full of memories than the rocky hill of the Areopagus 
that almost joined the Acropolis upon its western slope. 
There the Amazons had encamped when they laid siege 

f to the Acropolis ; there Ares, the god of war, had been 
brought to trial by Poseidon, the god of the sea ; there 
Orestes, charged with the murder of his mother Clytem- 
nestra, had been acquitted by the vote of the goddess 
Athena. At the foot of the hill was the cave of the 
avenging furies. And on the rocky mass thus hallowed 
by legend had sat from time immemorial a council that 
watched over the state. Even before Solon the council 
had Consisted of men who had held the office of the 
archonship. Those who entered the council retained 
their seat for life. No change in the method of election 
was made by Solon, but as election to the archonship 
was now by popular vote, it is clear that the character of 
the council was considerably altered. What precisely 
the duties of this council were is not known. But it is 
clear that it had the decision in certain cases, and es- 
pecially in murder cases, and a general censorship over 
the whole city. Our modern world, with its complex life 
and large populations, knows nothing of this censorial 
power, and can know nothing. But in the ancient world, 



Ch. IV.] The Earlier History of Athens 77 

where life was simpler and cities smaller, and where the 
priesthood had little influence on the general course of 
men's lives, such a censorial body was always found, and 
was probably highly beneficial. The members of the 
council are spoken of as ^' superintendents of good order 
and decency." It was their task to repress luxury, vice, 
and idleness ; and their power of fine and censure was 
unlimited in this direction. Extravagance in dress or 
table, dissoluteness in life or language, would bring the 
guilty person before the bar of the council, to be punished 
either by a money fine or public disrepute. These two 
councils Solon regarded as the two anchors of the state. 
Riding on them, he says in his poems, the state would 
be less tossed by storms. 

Enough has been said to show the general character 
of Solon's work. He established no democracy in the 
Greek sense of the' word. He ministered to the passions 
and interests of no class. He endeavoured to fix and 
define the reciprocal duties and rights of the various 
sections of the population. His work did not last in its 
entirety. He did not succeed in blocking the way for 
tyranny ; and when the tyranny was past, the rising tide 
of democracy soon swept the vessel away from the anchors 
that Solon had thrown out. But he had given to Greece 
an example of sympathy guided by reason and of con- 
ciliatory statesmanship such as she would not see again ; 
and so great was his reputation even with those who 
deviated most from his principles that he was always 
claimed as the founder of the Athenian democracy. 

The Tyranny at Athens. 

If we look at Solon's work in the light of the contem- 
porary history of Greece, we cannot doubt that one of his 



78 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. iv. 

main objects was to ward off the tyranny that had, else- 
where in Greece, been reared up on popular discontent. 
In that object he failed. When he had finished his task 
he bound the Athenians by oath to make no changes for 
ten years, and then left Athens and journeyed in the 
East. The romantic stories that Herodotus connects 
with these travels, however little historical basis they 
may have, prove at least the loving veneration with which 
Solon's name was regarded. When he came back from 
his travels he found the disaster that he had tried to 
avert clearly imminent. The moderate nature of his 
reform had not satisfied either party : the poor had ex- 
pected more; to the noble it seemed an outrage that 
one of their own class should have taken from them so 
much. The discontent had found a voice, and was 
organised into separate factions. The men of the hills, 
the men of the plain, and the men of the seashore, they 
are called by Herodotus. The men of the hills were the 
poor and revolutionary party ; the men of the plain rich, 
and reactionary. The men of the seashore seem to 
have been moderate both in fortune and political aspira- 
tions. At the head of the hill faction stood Pisistratus, 
a man of high birth and some military renown. His 
attachment to the faction of the poorest could hardly be 
disinterested. To one who like Solon knew the history 
of other Greek states, it was clear that he intended to 
use the favour of the people to establish himself a tyrant. 
But Solon's eager denunciations were disregarded, and 
step by step Pisistratus mounted to power. ** He con- 
trived," says Herodotus, " the following stratagem. He 
wounded himself and his mules, and then drove his 
chariot into the marketplace, professing to have just 
escaped an attack of his enemies, who had attempted 



Ch. IV.] The Earlier History of Athens 79 

his life on his way into the country. He besought the 
people to assign him a guard to protect his person. . . . 
The Athenians, deceived by his story, appointed him a 
band of citizens to serve as a guard, who were to carry 
clubs and accompany him wherever he went. Thus 
strengthened, Pisistratus broke into revolt and seized 
the Acropolis, and in this way he acquired the sovereignty 
of Athens " (560). He was twice driven out, and twice, by 
arrangement and stratagem, he returned. The details 
of his career are interesting, but do not concern us here. 

But the general features of his rule deserve to be 
considered. He preserved the outward forms of the 
Solonian constitution, as Caesar those of the Roman 
Republic, as Napoleon at first preserved the forms and 
phrases of the French Revolution. He assumed no 
regal display, but appeared in public as a simple citizen. 
He consented to be indicted before the Council of the 
Areopagus. He himself visited every part of the country, 
settling disputes and superintending improvements. 
Aristotle notes especially his "popular and kindly dis- 
position." " He burdened the people,'' he tells us, " as 
little as possible, but always cultivated peace and kept 
them in all quietness.'' An income tax of five per cent, 
was levied from the three richest classes, but the poorest 
was doubtless exempt. 

Liberty, of course, in the sense of self-government, had 
really disappeared. Meetings of the council and of the 
popular assembly could hardly conceal the fact that 
power rested on the body-guard that Pisistratus always 
kept round him. But after the manner of all great 
absolute rulers, Pisistratus tried to compensate for the 
loss of liberty by an increase in the splendour of the 
city both at home and abroad. If the parochial scale 



8o Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. iv. 

of Greek politics will allow the comparison, he is like 
Louis XIV. during the early and splendid period of the 
rule of the Grand Monarch. Now for the first time 
Athens began to appear as the most beautiful city of the 
Greek w^orld. Three great temples w^ere begun, two were 
finished. The temple to Zeus w^as begun on so huge a 
scale that Greece never found time or money to complete 
it, and the task was reserved for the Roman Emperor 
Hadrian. By the Ilissus rose a temple to Apollo. On 
the Acropolis was built a temple to Athena Parthenos, 
the great temple of the tutelary goddess of Athens until 
the Parthenon of Pericles took its place. Some of the 
most interesting results of recent excavations on the 
Acropolis are statues and carved work belonging almost 
certainly to the earlier temple of Athena built by 
Pisistratus. The work, though crude, gives clear pro- 
mise of the future glory of Athenian art. The artists 
employed in the work were brought to Athens from 
various places. Athens was already the artistic centre 
of Greece. But not alone with architecture was Athens 
made beautiful. The gods wxre honoured by rehgious 
services of increased magnificence, as well as by temples. 
The great Panathenaic festival received new splendour 
under the administration of Pisistratus. Once in every 
four years the solemn procession of the Athenian people, 
men and women, chariots and horsemen, went with 
splendid solemnity to give to the goddess Athena a 
newly woven scarlet garment, richly adorned with em- 
broidery. Connected with the central act were athletic 
contests such as the Greek loved. With Pisistratus, 
too, begins the greatness of the Attic drama. Dramatic 
performances were, at first, religious services in honour 
of Dionysus, the god of wine, and they never lost some 



Ch. IV.] The Earlier History of Athens 8i 

trace of their religious origin. At first the performance 
was one of the utmost simplicity. A single actor recited 
some scene from the life of the god, the chorus sang 
and danced in honour of him. From that beginning, by 
allowing greater latitude of subject and more actors than 
one, was developed the great Attic drama, perhaps the 
greatest and certainly the most influential drama that the 
world has known. Delos, too, the great Ionian sanctuary 
of Apollo, was attended to. It had suftered pollution by 
the burial of bodies too near the temple. These were 
removed to a greater distance. Lasdy a new recension 
of Homer was carried out under his superintendence. 
The very doubtful details of the procedure do not con- 
cern us. The fact only is of importance. Pisistratus 
had honoured the gods, he had built them temples, he 
had given splendour to their worship, he had published a 
"revised version " of the most sacred book of the Greek 
world. If Greece had had either a faith or a church, he 
would surely have been called the "eldest son of the 
church '' and the " defender of the faith." 

At the same time the material welfare of the people 
was attended to. Aqueducts were made and reservoirs ; 
roads were constructed. Every effort was made to pre- 
vent the country population from coming up to Athens. 
There is no need to see in every act of Pisistratus the 
anxiety of a tyrant to deceive his people, but clearly 
it was from the town population rather than from the 
scattered dwellers in the country that the tyrant would 
have opposition to fear. Abroad, too, Athens' reputation 
was increased by alliances with other tyrants, and by the 
conquest of Sigeum on the Hellespont. This last acqui- 
sition may be taken as marking the beginning of Athens' 
foreign empire. 

6 



I 



82 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. iv. 

In 527, after a beneficent and just rule, Pisistratus 
died, and, like any constitutional monarch, was succeeded 
by his sons Hippias and Hipparchus. The inheritor of 
wealth and power hardly ever uses them so circumspectly 
as he who first procured them. The sons of Pisistratus 
seem to have carried matters with a high hand, and 
seized not only the reality but also the appearance of 
power. Yet they carried on their father's patronage of 
art. It was Hippias, says Aristotle, who invited to 
Athens '^Anacreon, Simonides, and the other poets." 
For fourteen years their rule lasted without open op- 
position ; and when opposition came, it arose not from 
any concern for public liberty, but from private hatred. 
Harmodius and Aristogeiton in 514 attempted to murder 
the two tyrants on the day of the Panathenaic festival. 
Before the time for the attack had come they believed 
themselves betrayed, and at once attacked the tyrants. 
Hipparchus was cut down; Hippias escaped and revenged 
himself upon the murderers of his brother. Their motives 
in the attempt were purely personal, their failure was 
complete, the killing of Hipparchus had nothing to do 
with the subsequent destruction of the tyranny, and yet 
while Athens lasted they were honoured as the proto- 
martyrs of liberty, and the enthusiasts of the French 
Revolution dropped their own names and adopted those 
of the first tyrant-slayers. The immediate result of the 
conspiracy was to increase the harshness of the rule 
of the remaining brother. So his enemies increased in 
number, and his rivals saw that an attack might now be 
successful. Of his opponents the family of the Alc- 
maeonidae were the most important. They were one 
of the richest families of Athens, and produced many 
eminent men. It was from them that Pericles sprang. 



Ch. IV.] The Earlier History of Athens 83 

They were now in exile, waiting on the confines of Attica 
with an exile's eagerness for return. Their opportunity 
came in a way that deserves some notice, even in this 
preliminary sketch. The temple at Delphi had just 
been burnt down. ''The Alcmaeonidae,'' says Herodo- 
tus, " contracted to build the temple which now stands 
at Delphi. Having done this, they proceeded, being 
men of great wealth and members of an ancient and 
distinguished family, to build the temple much more 
magnificently than the plan obliged them. Besides 
other improvements, instead of the coarse stone where- 
of, by the contract, the temple was to have been con- 
structed, they made the facings of Parian marble. These 
same men during their stay at Delphi persuaded the 
Pythoness, by a bribe, to tell the Spartans, whenever 
any of them came to consult the oracle, either on their 
own private affairs or on the business of the state, 
that they must free Athens." The task thus enjoined 
on them was not congenial to the policy of Sparta, for 
Hippias was a friend of the Spartan state. But this 
monotonous response, apparently excluding all others, 
amounted to something like the excommunication of 
the Spartan state from the central religious institution 
of Greece. After much hesitation, then, a Spartan army 
was marched into Attica, and Hippias was besieged in 
the Acropolis. The success of the siege seemed very 
doubtful, but the tyrant's children were captured as 
they were being sent out of the country. To rescue 
them Hippias abandoned Athens to the Spartans, and 
fled to Sigeum, in Asia Minor; and so the tyranny 
fell, never to be restored. The story of the expulsion 
shows us, in a striking way, the strength and the 
weakness of the oracle. It can force Sparta to an 



84 Greece m the Age of Pej'icles [Ch. iv. 

expedition against her own interests, but it cannot resist 
a bribe. 

The memory of the tyranny became abominable to 
the Athenians : the tyrant's statues were overthrown ; 
his name was erased from pubHc monuments ; later, 
a fancied resemblance to Pisistratus was used as a 
taunt against Pericles. But the modern student of 
Athenian history cannot feel the same hatred of the 
time of his rule. It broke the peaceful development of 
the Solonian constitution, and gave to the democracy 
an uncompromising character sometimes to be regretted. 
But benefits also accrued to Athens from the tyranny. 
How great was its service to art has already been shown. 
It must have tended to kill the factions, as the Norman 
rule broke down the Saxon factions in England. Not 
least of the benefits conferred, it implanted in Athens a 
never-effaced hatred of tyranny and love of freedom. 

The Democratic Reforms of Clisthenes. 

When Hippias had fallen, the course of Athens by 
no means ran smooth at first. Abroad she had the 
hostility of Sparta to face, for that state soon discovered 
how she had been duped by the oracle, and it was soon 
plain that Athens self-governed would be a much more 
dangerous rival than Athens in the hands of tyrants. 
How Sparta invaded Attica with a view to the re-estab- 
lishment of the tyranny is in itself interesting, and 
reveals clearly the character of the policy of Sparta, but 
can find no place in this chapter. Of more permanent 
importance were the political conflicts that immediately 
developed in Athens herself. It was not yet at all 
plain in whose interests the tyranny had been destroyed. 
The family of the Alcmaeonidae, who had played the 



Ch. IV.] The Earlier History of Athens 85 

greatest part in the expulsion, were aristocrats. To 
many, and perhaps to them, the expulsion must have 
seemed a means towards the re-establishment of the 
privileges that had been cut down by Solon, The 
mass of the people desired to advance much further 
in the direction of democracy than Solon had allowed ; 
whose ordinances had indeed, during the years of the 
tyranny, fallen into disuse. Those faction disputes that 
had led up to the tyranny of Pisistratus broke out again, 
but were attended with a different result. At the head 
of the Alcmaeonidae was Clisthenes. Of his past and 
his character we really know nothing. He was a 
nobleman of one of the greatest families of Athens ; 
he had eaten the bread of exile during the rule of 
the Pisistratids, and doubtless came back to Athens 
full of ambition and thirst for power. He found himself 
a faction leader opposed to other leaders of factions ; 
and in the struggle he was getting the worst. " Being 
defeated," says Herodotus, '*he made friends with the 
people.'' We do not know how this friendship with 
the people brought them and him to victory. That 
somehow or other under the guidance of Clisthenes a 
democratic victory was gained and democratic measures 
introduced is a certainty. As these measures give 
to the democracy its chief features and were only 
developed by Pericles, they deserve consideration from 
us here. 

First in order of importance comes the destruction for 
political purposes of the old tribes and the formation 
of new ones on an entirely new basis. While much is 
obscure on this subject, the main objects of the change 
are clear. The political influence of the aristocracy was 
destroyed, and a new class was introduced to the citizen- 



86 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. iv. 

ship. In modern phrase, the franchise was extended and 
aristocratic privilege was aboHshed. The four old tribes 
of immemorial antiquity, though they certainly included 
poor as well as rich, yet by the influence of tradition and 
probably of their organisation gave power into the hands 
of the Eupatrid nobles. While these tribes remained 
the units of political power — the constituencies we may 
almost call them, for each elected a hundred members to 
the Senate — it was in vain that democratic reforms were 
introduced. The tribes elected Eupatrids to office as 
naturally as a Scottish clan elected its chief. And 
further, seeing that membership of the tribes rested upon 
right of birth, it was impossible, while tribal membership 
alone conferred citizenship, to introduce to citizenship 
any large body of outsiders. And such a large body 
was to be found in Attica. Commerce had brought 
a merchant class ; for various reasons immigration into 
Attica had taken place. Here was a class of real value 
to the state and of the greatest value to an agitator. To 
include them in the state the old tribes must be entirely 
pushed aside for political purposes. The whole of Attica 
was already cut up into divisions called demes. They 
may be regarded as the ** wards '^ of Attica, if the 
word, usually applied only to towns, can be extended 
to the country. " Parishes " would convey their nature 
still more closely, if we take from the word some of 
its religious meanings. The demes, then, were old 
divisions of Attica purely local in character, without 
any connection with particular aristocratic families or 
much organisation. These Clisthenes took as the basis 
for his new tribes. Either there were a hundred of them 
existing before Clisthenes' time, or by re-arrangement 
they were made into a hundred. Ten of these demes, 



Ch. IV.] The Eai'lier History of Athens 87 

not contiguous, but taken from different parts of the 
country, were massed into a tribe. The ten tribes thus 
created were therefore without the local interest that 
might express itself against the general interest of the 
state, and would not supply any lever to the aristocracy 
whereby they might interfere with the now rapidly in- 
creasing democratic character of the state. These new 
tribes were to be the new political units, the new " con- 
stituencies " of Attica. From Delphi came approval of 
the new arrangement. The priestess herself chose the 
heroes who were to give their names to the various 
tribes. The old tribes still existed for religious and 
social purposes, but their political existence had 
ceased. 

The real government, the central institution of the 
state, was, as we have already seen, the Council of 
400, that owed its origin to Solon's activity. As that 
council consisted of a hundred members taken from each 
tribe, the new ordinances of Clisthenes necessarily led 
to some slight changes. Instead of four hundred it 
consisted henceforth of five hundred members, fifty 
taken from each of the ten tribes newly instituted by 
Clisthenes. And about this time, too, the order and 
method of the sittings of this council were further 
organised. But a consideration of these subjects will 
come more naturally when, in a subsequent chapter, we 
examine the Athenian democracy in the full development 
of the Periclean age. To that place, too, it is best to 
relegate some account and discussion of the system 
of election by lot, one of the most important and 
characteristic of the institutions of the Athenian 
democracy : noting here only that the lot was already 
employed in the ^ime of Clisthenes. 



88 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. iv. 

There remains for consideration the institution of 
ostracism^ which was introduced by CHsthenes at this 
period. The procedure was as follows. Every year the 
Athenian people were asked whether they wished to 
banish any one for the space of ten years. If in the 
public assembly a negative vote was given, as would 
usually be the case, nothing further was done in the 
matter. If the decision was in the affirmative, then a 
day was set apart for further proceedings. On that 
day the Athenian people were called together. Voting 
tablets, the ^'ostraka," from which the process takes its 
name, were distributed to them. No individual name 
was mentioned, no grounds for the taking of the vote 
were indicated. Without any guidance, without at any 
rate any official or open guidance, each citizen was asked 
to write on his voting tablet the name of any citizen, 
great or small, whose presence in the state seemed 
prejudicial to its best interests. No one need vote at 
all unless he liked. The voting tablets were then de- 
posited in a great urn, and at the close of the day 
the proper officers scrutinised them and announced the 
result. If six thousand votes * had not been given, 
the w^hole proceeding remained without result ; it was 
essential to the working of it that it should represent 
the opinion of a large section of the citizens. If the 
requisite number of votes had been given, then he who 

* There is much doubt as to the number of votes necessary to 
a vote of ostracism. Must six thousand have voted against, one 
individual, or was it merely necessary that six thousand votes in all 
should have been given? Grote holds the former view. Most 
historians since him have adopted the latter, and the weight of 
evidence seems to incline to their side. But is it consistent with the 
character of the democracy that perhaps a fifth of the whole number 
of citizens should be able to expel a popular politician ? 



Ch. IV.] The Earlier History of Athens 89 

had received most had to retire into honourable exile 
for the space of ten years. The vote carried with it no 
confiscation of property and no money fine. Absence 
from Attica and from all Athenian territory for the space 
of ten years was the only punishment that ostracism im- 
plied. But that punishment was greater than it sounds 
to modern ears ; for to a Greek the life of a citizen was 
the only life worth living. To live as an alien in a 
foreign land was intolerable. 

Such was the procedure. What was its meaning and 
its objects ? When the measure was introduced, Athens 
had not long emerged from the tyranny of the Pisis- 
tratids. Hatred and fear of that tyranny was henceforth 
for some time the strongest motive in Athenian politics ; 
just as for nearly a century after 1688 fear of a Roman 
Catholic regime was among the strongest influences on 
English politics. Pisistratus had gained power against 
the wishes of the Athenian people. Solon had warned 
them in vain. The suspicions of many had doubtless been 
aroused ; but Pisistratus had made constant professions 
of good intentions, until he had 'obtained the body-guard 
that allowed him to dispense with guile in favour of 
force. Until the occupation of the Acropolis he had 
done nothing that would bring him within the reach of 
the law; the first steps in all usurpations are legal in form. 
Ostracism was introduced to give the Athenian people a 
legal means of acting on their suspicions before action 
was too late. Ostracism allowed the Athenian people 
to say to any prominent citizen, " We suspect your inten- 
tions : your life indeed shows no offence against the laws, 
but your conduct gives ground for suspicion. We ask 
you, therefore, to retire from Athens, that the confusion 
your presence causes may subside." A good citizen 



90 Greece in the Age of Pertcles [Ch. IV. 

might be expected to make such a sacrifice willingly ; 
unwillingness would go some way to show that exile was 
deserved. If we wish, by a modern instance, to realise 
the circumstances under which ostracism was had re- 
course to, the career of General Boulanger is precisely 
analogous to the rise of a tyrant in Greece, such as 
ostracism was intended to prevent. Against General 
Boulanger no specific charge could be brought. That 
he wore a carnation and rode a black charger in a 
splendid uniform was not high treason. His vague 
and meaningless manifestoes betrayed the designs of 
a usurper, but were not actionable at law. But still 
the increasing majorities with which he or his candidates 
were returned showed how dangerously successful he had 
been in "making friends with the people.'' A procedure 
was therefore adopted which was confessedly uncon- 
stitutional, and the would-be usurper was, by special 
enactment, driven into exile. What in France was 
accomplished by a wrenching of the constitution of the 
most questionable kind, was done in Athens by a 
regular process of law, applicable to any person or by 
any party, which, because of its openness and legality, 
must have left comparatively little soreness behind. 

Solon gave Athens a constitution with democratic 
features. Clisthenes introduced a real democracy. We 
have not yet arrived at the unbridled power of the 
popular assembly that we find in the Periclean era. But 
the bent of the whole constitution is in that direction, 
and within Athens herself there was no power that could 
resist that tendency. Monarchy was completely gone. 
Aristocracy and oligarchy were both overthrown, after 
having proved their incompetence to guide the state. 
The few institutions that still limited the power of the 



Ch. IV.] 



The Earlier History of Athens 



91 



people — mere surface-survivals after the root had been 
destroyed — were bound shortly to disappear. 

Note. — Grote, Part II., chs. xxx., xxxi. Curtius, Book II., ch. ii. 
Much is to be learned from Herodotus and something from Thucy- 
dides. Aristotle's newly discovered Athenian Constitution has 
settled some difficulties and raised others. I quote from the transla- 
tion of F. G. Kenyon (George Bell & Sons). Plutarch's Life of 
Solon is one of his most interesting biographies, and historically 
valuable on account of the great number of authorities from whom 
he quotes. 




View of the Plain from the Areopagus. 




Temple of Jupiter Olympus. 



CHAPTER V. 



THE RIVALRY OF ATHENS AND SPARTA. 



Solon, Pisistratus, Clisthenes, are the chief names in 
the constitutional development of Athens up to the time 
of Pericles. But in the making of Greece there were 
influences other than political or constitutional. The 
influence of religion has already been dwelt on. Another 
most important influence was that of the Persian war. 

All account of this great struggle is necessarily excluded 
by the scope of this book; but some mention of its 
results must be included. Of all wars in history, few 
has been so fertile in beneficent results as this great 
struggle. To prove this there is no necessity to under- 
rate the many high qualities of the Persians, and the ex- 
cellencies of their state. It is enough to say that in 
the struggle there was a real danger of the stifling of 
European civilisation in its cradle. To our era the idea 
of the overthrow of civilisation by barbarism is an entirely 
incredible one, because its basis extends over three con- 



92 



Ch. v.] The Rivalry of Athens and Sparta 93 

tinents and more, and the resources of science seem to 
have given to peoples of high intellectual development a 
necessary superiority over peoples less advanced. We 
see without any astonishment at all a regiment with 
modern drilling and modern arms of precision overthrow 
with enormous slaughter a horde of courageous bar- 
barians unpossessed of scientific weapons and training. 
But science and gunpowder have given a military 
superiority to civilisation over barbarism that finds 
no parallel in the fifth century B.C. There were many 
instances where nations, once restless and victorious, 
growing into habits of settled life fell a prey to 
wilder tribes. The high state of civilisation in Greece 
might seem rather a danger than an assistance. And she 
found herself attacked at the same time both upon the 
east and the west by forces far surpassing her own in 
numerical strength and hitherto almost unbeaten. If 
Greece had succumbed in that struggle with a barbarian 
power, the stream of civilisation would have been choked 
at its source. Doubtless it would have begun again 
elsewhere, but how great must have been the loss to 
mankind if the wealth of Greek science, art, and philo- 
sophy had been lost ! — how impossible is it to believe 
that any other nation could have made such contri- 
butions to the beauty and knowledge of the world ! 

It was not altogether the qualities of the Greeks that 
saved them. Persia attacked them when she was beyond 
the zenith of her development, when the great conqueror 
who founded the Persian Empire had been succeeded 
by a voluptuary. How different must the course of 
affairs have been, whatever the final issue, if a Cyrus 
or a Darius, instead of a Xerxes, had commanded the 
expedition against Greece ! 



J 



9^ Greece hi the Age of Pericles [Ch. v. 

When the great attack from the East was visibly im- 
pending over that collection of small states that we call 
Greece, all was confusion and disorder. The jealousies 
of Argos and Sparta, of Thebes and Athens, and other 
similar jealousies elsewhere, made resistance by united 
Greece impossible. If the oracle at Delphi had boldly 
championed the national defence, the effect upon the 
wars and upon its own future influence could not have 
failed to be great. But the oracle gave answers some- 
times ambiguous, sometimes directly counselling sub- 
mission and despair. In this crisis, putting aside for the 
present the vices and follies of the Persians, Greece 
was saved mainly by two influences. In the first place, 
the character of Sparta had given her such pre-eminence 
in Greece that no state felt itself insulted by having to 
follow her leadership. And in the second place, at this 
crisis Athens displayed an absence of petty vanity, and a 
Panhellenic patriotism, rarely met with in any Greek 
state, along with an activity and clearsightedness of the 
most remarkable kind. It was the supremacy of Sparta 
which gave to Greece the very moderate amount of unity 
that she showed during the contest ; but in every instance 
it was from Athens that the ablest leaders and the best 
ideas came. 

And thus Greece weathered the storm. Athens had 
borne the brunt of the first attack in 490, and alone, 
save for the not very important help rendered by Plataea, 
had fought the battle of Marathon. In 480 and 479, 
though Argos, Thebes, Thessaly, and others stood sullenly 
aloof, most of the Greek states followed the leadership 
of Sparta, and were represented in the glorious struggles 
of Thermopylae, Salamis (480), Platasa, and Mycale (479). 
With these last battles Greece emerged victoriously from 



Ch. v.] The Rivalry of Athens and Sparta 95 

the contest. The former terror of the Persian arms 
passed into contempt, and though between East and 
West there was constant friction until the time when, a 
hundred and fifty years later, Alexander the Great broke 
up the Persian Empire, never again did Persia seem at 
all likely to overwhelm Greek civilisation. The Persian 
wars, by their result, allowed the Greek world freely to 
bequeath its inheritance of art, science, and thought to 
later centuries. That is the great significance of the 
struggle. 

But its influence upon the internal politics of Greece 
was also great and important. During its course Athens 
had risen from a subordinate position, not ^indeed to be 
the leader of the Greek states, for Sparta was that still, 
but to be recognised as the most enterprising and active 
state. She had drawn all men's eyes upon herself 
And next the wars had shown, as had never been shown 
before, the need for unity in Greece. If we follow the 
course of the wars, we see how slight were the bonds that 
held the Greek states together, how well founded were 
the hopes of the Persians that they would be able by 
bribes to seduce most of them from the national defence. 
In 480 B.C. the congress of the patriot states at the 
Isthmus had sworn to take vengeance upon all states ^ 

that had joined the side of the Persians except under 
clear compulsion. The oath emphasised the hitherto / 

unrecognised duty of Panhellenic patriotism, but it did ' 

nothing for the establishment of any union. But at 
Plat3ea, when the Persians had fought and lost their last 
battle upon the Greek mainland, and the Greeks for the 
first time were relieved from the pressure of immediate 
danger, it was determined to do something to form a 
national alliance. It is of the utmost importance to 



96 Gi'eece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. v. 

mark what was done. It forms the starting-point of the 
international politics of Greece in the age of Pericles. 
After the Persians had been defeated and their camp 
stormed, it was determined to do something in memory 
of the victory achieved. The oracle of Delphi presided 
over the work. Thence fire was brought to light again the 
fires that had been put out because they were regarded 
as polluted by the Persian occupation. A special altar 
was built to Zeus Eleutherius (the giver of freedom). 
An athletic festival, to take place every four years, was 
established in memory of the battle. Platsea was declared 
a sacred city, much after the fashion of Olympia. To 
those who had died in the battle yearly public honours 
were decreed, and the city of Plataea was entrusted 
with the duty of seeing that these honours were paid. 
Down to the first century after Christ, the chief magis- 
trate of the state went once in every year to the monu- 
ments of the dead, and drank '^ to the men who died for 
the freedom of the Greeks.'^ And further, upon the 
proposal of the Athenian Aristides, it was determined that 
commissioners from all the states should meet at Plataea 
every year, and that a force of ten thousand infantry, one 
thousand horse, and one hundred ships should be always 
kept in readiness for action against the Persians. This 
was not the formation of a league of all the Greek states 
in any workable shape. But it was a beginning that 
might have grown to something of great importance. A 
common standing army had been, at any rate in theory, 
established ; meetings that might have grown into a 
federal council of Greece had been begun : the great 
and successful war, calling out as it did all that was best 
in Greece, had given an impetus in the direction of 
union such as Greece had never known before. For a 



Ch. v.] The Rivalry of Athens and Sparta 97 

very brief period Greece, except for the few recalcitrant 
states, who were now disgraced and anxious to creep 
back to the patriotic side, was a united whole under the 
headship of Sparta. But there were several causes that 
made the continuation of this state of things as difficult 
as it was desirable. The idea of obedience to a common 
leader was contrary to the international morality of the 
Greeks. No state could well be imagined less capable 
of guiding a confederacy than Sparta ; she lacked entirely 
the necessary initiative and conciliatory spirit. iVnd, 
lastly, Athens was not likely to accept a subordinate role 
in the confederacy with ready submission. It would ^ 
have needed the constant pressure of a Persian war to / 
bring about a really stable union of the Greek states. / 

The First Differences between Athens and Sparta. 

The impossibility of these two great states working 
together was not long in showing itself. Immediately after 
the battle of Mycale, a difficult problem had to be faced, 
and the divergent proposals put forward by Athens and 
Sparta showed how difficult it would be to remain in 
harmony. Though the Persians had been so decisively 
beaten, they were still masters upon the mainland. Greek 
states there still yielded submission to Persian masters. 
With the revolt of Ionia the Persian wars had begun, and 
until that revolt was successful the defeat of the Persians 
was notr complete. And now the Ionian states asked to 
be admitted into the anti-Persian league, whereby of 
course the league would pledge itself to continue the 
contest until they were free. From this responsibility 
the Spartans shrank. How could a state, whose citizens 
by the letter of the constitution might not leave Sparta 
without special permission, contemplate a constant inter- 

7. 




98 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. V. 

ference in the affairs of the eastern shore of the ^gean ? 
They proposed instead that those Greeks of the mainland 
who had taken the side of the Persians in the war should 
be expelled from their territory, and that it should be 
granted to the Ionian Greeks, who would then transport 
themselves thither with all their belongings. Such trans- 
portations of populations were not uncommon in the 
East, and the proposal would not seem so impossible as 
it does to us. But the lonians resisted ; the actual soil 
of a country, with its deities and memories, was dear to 
a Greek. And Athens joined in their protest. As head 
of the Ionian race, she regarded herself as specially 
responsible for them. In face of this double protest 
Sparta yielded. '^ Hereupon the Samians, Chians, 
Lesbians, and other islanders were received into the 
league of the allies, and took the oaths binding them- 
selves to be faithful and not to desert the common 
cause." Henceforth it is plain that Athens would be 
more popular than Sparta with the Ionian Greeks, but 
the headship of Sparta was nominally continued (479). 
The fleet then sailed on to the Hellespont, and after 
a long and tedious siege expelled the Persians from 
Sestos. 

Meanwhile the Athenians could devote all their energies 
to their land, twice wasted by the fire and sword of the 
Persians. Private houses and the temples of the gods 
were all in ruins. The crops probably were scanty, for 
the great year 479 can have given them little leisure for 
agricultural duties. But before temples or houses or 
crops could be attended to, a more pressing need had 
to be met. Before they could throw their energies into 
building houses, they must feel secure that what they 
built would be safe from invasion and overthrow. To 



Ch. v.] The Rivalry of Athens and Sparta 99 

fortify Athens was the first thing, and to this task 
Themistocles, the ablest statesman of the time, devoted 
all his energies. He it was who had seen the invasion 
of Xerxes before it came, and had induced the Athenians 
to prepare a navy to fight an enemy who, on the occa- 
sion of their first expedition, had been defeated on 
land. Through the year 480 he had constantly taken 
the lead. Even though romance has lent its colour^ 
to his cunning and foresight, we must own that probably 
neither Artemisium nor Salamis would have been 
fought had it not been for him. " From his own native 
acuteness," says Thucydides, "and without any study 
either before or at the time, he was the ablest judge 
of the course to be pursued in a sudden emergency, 
and could best divine what was likely to happen in the 
remotest future." He it was who now urged upon the 
Athenians to build the fortifications on an extended 
scale. It marks well the chronic hostilities of these 
Greek states that this defence, which could only be 
intended against Greek enemies, should have been the 
first thought of a great statesman. And his anxiety in 
the matter was quite justified by the difficulties that were 
thrown in the way. Sparta had seen with jealous eyes 
the rise of the Athenian navy, her vigour in the struggle 
with Persia, her popularity in the ^gean Sea. If Athens 
was fortified, she would quickly take up an attitude in- 
dependent of Sparta. Yet force could not, in the first 
instance, be used against an ally. It was on the ground 
of patriotism that Sparta made her protest against the 
fortifications. If the Persian came again, she said, he 
might find in a fortified Athens, if once victorious against 
her, the same sort of support, but greater, that he had 
found in Thebes in 480. Athens should rather pull 



100 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. v. 

down her own walls, and force every other state outside 
the Peloponnese to do the same. The danger of such a 
request, which might easily be backed by an armed force, 
was as apparent as the jealousy that had prompted it. 
The situation required careful handling, but Themistocles 
had recourse to the *' lie direct," with a frankness that 
would have startled Machiavelli. The method adopted can 
best be told in the words of Thucydides : **The Athenians, 
by the advice of Themistocles, replied that they would 
send an embassy to discuss the matter, and so got rid of 
the Spartan envoys. He then proposed that he should 
himself start at once for Sparta, and that they should give 
him colleagues who were not to go immediately, but were 
to wait until the wall had reached the lowest height 
which could possibly be defended. The whole people, 
men, women, and children, should join in the work, and 
they must spare no building, public or private, which 
could be of use, but demolish them all. Having given 
these instructions, and intimated that he would manage 
affairs at Sparta, he departed. On his arrival he did not 
at once present himself officially to the magistrates, but 
delayed and made excuses, and when any of them asked 
him * why he did not appear before the assembly,' he 
said * that he was waiting for his colleagues, who had 
been detained by some engagement; he was daily ex- 
pecting them, and wondered that they had not appeared.' 
The friendship of the magistrates for Themistocles induced 
them to believe him, but when everybody who came from 
Athens declared po.^itively that the wall was building, and 
had already reached a considerable height, they knew 
not what to think. He, aware of their suspicions, desired 
them not to be misled by reports, but to send to Athens 
men whom they could trust out of their own number, 



Ch. v.] The Rivalry of Athens and Sparta loi 

who would see for themselves and bring back word. 
They agreed ; and he, at the same time, privately in- 
structed the Athenians to detain the envoys as quietly 
as they could, and not let them go until he and his 
colleagues had got safely home. For, by this time, those 
who were joined with him in the embassy had arrived, 
bringing the news that the wall was of sufficient height, 
and he was afraid that the Lacedaemonians, when they 
heard the truth, might not allow them to return. So 
the Athenians detained the envoys, and Themistocles, 
coming before the Lacedaemonians, at length declared, 
in so many words, that Athens was now provided with 
walls and would protect her citizens ; henceforward, if 
the Lacedaemonians wished at any time to negotiate, they 
must deal with the Athenians as with men who knew 
quite well what was best for their own and the common 
good'' (478). 

" It is of great consequence," says Machiavelli, " that 
a statesman should disguise his inclination and play the 
hypocrite well." The coup of Themistocles was a great 
success. Sparta could not openly quarrel just then. 
She had to pretend that her motives had been misjudged. 
But certainly the relations between Athens and Sparta 
had suffered a severe strain. The proceeding was quite 
incompatible with any genuine acceptance of the head- 
ship of Athens on the part of Sparta. And soon the 
strained bond was wholly renj: in sunder. 

The Treason of Pausanias and the Transference of the 
Waval Leadership to Athens. 

When, in 477, the struggle with Persia was resumed, 
Sparta led the armament, and Pausanias, King of Sparta, 
was appointed to command the united navies. He had. 



102 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. V. 

during the year 479, by virtue of his official position 
as King of Sparta, rather than by any striking abihty, 
become the most prominent figure in the struggle of 
Greece against Persia. He commanded the united 
forces at the battle of Piataea, and though the accounts 
we have of the battle do not allow us to ascribe the 
victory to him in any way, it drew for a time the eyes 
of all Greece upon him. In a manner characteristic of 
Spartans, he became intoxicated with success. He began 
to regard himself as the master of Greece rather than as 
her chosen leader. When a golden tripod was dedicated 
from the spoils of Plataea to Apollo at Delphi, he had 
only his own name inscribed upon it. When it was 
erased and the names of the states who had taken part 
in the battle substituted, he must have felt himself 
personally insulted. He already knew how wholly 
different was the position of a Persian general ; he, at 
any rate, was not expected to be most obedient because 
he held highest command. Probably very soon after 
the battle of Plataea he began to dream of exchanging 
his irksome position as leader of the Spartans for the 
splendour and freedom of a vassal of the great king. As 
commander of the allied Greek fleet he came to drive 
the Persians out from the Hellespont and Bosphorus. 
He took Byzantium, and found among the prisoners 
many friends of the King of Persia. Here was an avenue 
through which he could open up those treasonable com- 
munications with Persia of which he had long dreamed- 
He allowed the prisoners to escape, and sent to the 
king a letter claiming his gratitude for the service thus 
rendered. " I propose," said the letter, if Thucydides 
has quoted it aright, *'to marry your daughter, and to 
bring Sparta and the rest of Hellas under your command." 



Ch. v.] The Rivalry of Athens and Sparta 103 

Xerxes accepted his offer with dehght, and sent down an 
officer to the Asiatic coast of the Bosphorus in order to 
co-operate with him. All this was not known to the 
Greeks, and perhaps not suspected. But its results upon 
the proceedings of Pausanias were plain enough. Already 
he acted as though he were in possession of that power 
at which he aimed. He surrounded himself with a foreign 
body-guard ; the monogamy of the Greeks was openly 
discarded for the harem system of the Persians ; the 
soldiers of the various Greek contingents were treated as 
slaves, flogged and subjected to non-Hellenic punishments. 
The allies contrasted the haughty brutality of Pausanias 
with the courtesy and humanity of the Athenians, whose 
leader Aristides had deserved his reputation for complete 
impartiality. The leaders of the allied armaments ap- 
proached the Athenians, and proposed that they should 
undertake the leadership of the fleet in place of the 
Spartans. The purest Panhellenic patriotism might 
have rejected the proposal. But the removal of the 
pressure of the Persian war had allowed the egoistic 
state ambitions to emerge once more, and posterity can- 
not blame Athens if she accepted a position for which 
she felt herself fitted. A complete rupture between 
Sparta and the allies took place immediately, and the 
Athenian captains accepted, on behalf of their state, the 
proffered leadership. When news of all this reached 
Sparta, Pausanias was immediately recalled, and with him 
went all the Spartan contingent. On his arrival in Sparta 
his conduct was inquired into, but nothing definite 
could be proved against him to the satisfaction of his 
judges. He remained therefore at liberty in Sparta, and 
continued his treasonable communications with Persia. 
But the suspicion against him was strong enough to 



1 04 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. v. 

prevent the Spartans from appointing him to the post 
of command in the alHed fleet. Dorcis was appointed 
in his place, and sent out to the Hellespont. 

But the complexion of affairs there had altered con- 
siderably. The Athenians had had time to settle into 
their new position, and showed no inclination to move 
from it. The Spartans found that they must subordinate 
themselves to Athens, or retire altogether from the 
alliance. They chose the latter course, and sailed back 
to Sparta. No Spartan commander was ever appointed 
again, and the leadership of Athens remained without 
challenge. 

At the time the great importance of the event was not 
seen. The Spartans, not altogether unwillingly, retired 
from the responsibihties of leadership. "They preferred," 
says Plutarch, 'Ho see their citizens sober and law-abiding 
than to rule over the whole of Greece." And Thucydides 
represents them as acquiescing in the position of the 
Athenians with no fears for the future. Yet the crisis, 
viewed in the light of succeeding events, is one 
of great importance. The Greek tendency to state 
isolation, checked for a moment by the pressure of the 
Persian war, begins again. The possibiHties of the 
Plataean league are at an end. The religious and ath- 
letic festival there established went on yet for centuries ; 
but the annual meeting of representatives, the common 
standing army, the standard of Panhellenic patriotism 
— these had vanished for ever. What Grote calls "the 
bifurcation of Greek politics " had begun. In place of 
the one general league that we see after the Persian war, 
there were soon two leagues, — one of the states on the 
central mainland of Greece, led by Sparta ; one of island 
and Asiatic states, first led and then governed by Athens. 



Ch. v.] The Rivalry of Athens and Sparta 105 

Between these two confederacies there is at first, if much 
jealousy, no open hostility. But then the rivalry increases 
in openness and bitterness, until it ends in the suicidal 
Peloponnesian war. The intricate details of the following 
period are best appreciated if we regard them as stages in 
the progress of Greece from the unity of 479 to the com- 
plete disruption that follows the Peloponnesian war of 431. 
The sequel of Pausanias' career hardly concerns us 
here. It deserves mention, however, as one instance of 
the many treasons that Hellas, even in her best period, 
produced. From Sparta he still communicated with 
Persia. The authorities suspected him, but could not 
prove their suspicions. It was rumoured that he enter- 
tained a design worse than all his Persian intrigues — a 
design, namely, to raise the Helots against Sparta. A 
rising of the Helots was the Damocles' sword that always 
hung over the head of Sparta. They were only kept in 
subjection by organising a reign of terror amongst them. 
If they found a champion among the Spartans themselves, 
the whole state might very possibly disappear amid the 
waves of their rising. But at last the authorities got 
evidence to support their suspicions. I must refer the 
reader to Thucydides I. 128-34 for the most in- 
teresting narrative of the discovery of Pausanias' guilt ; 
most interesting as being one of the few occasions when 
we are allowed to see into the streets of Sparta with the 
clearness with which we constantly survey Athens. How 
Pausanias' slave betrayed his message to the Ephors, and 
how Pausanias, taking refuge in a temple, was starved 
to death, is there described at length. The career of 
Pausanias shows, if further proof were needed, how 
wholly incapable Sparta and Spartan institutions were of 
undertaking the guidance of a united Greece (468). 



To6 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. v. 

Themistocles in the Peloponnese. 
*' The death of Pausanias/' says a modern historian of 
Greece, '^ was no loss either to Greece or Sparta." But 
it exhibited to all Hellas the failure of Sparta to ensure 
those qualities in her chief men that she so vigorously 
tried to implant in all her citizens. About the time of 
Pausanias' death the prestige of Sparta seemed rapidly 
declining. United Hellas no longer recognised her as 
leader. In the Peloponnese she was no longer the 
unquestioned mistress that she had been for so long. 
Even by the banks of the Eurotas she trembled before 
the possibility of a Helot rising. The movement that 
Pausanias had set on foot had not died with his death ; 
for some time after certain Helots found it necessary 
to take sanctuary in the temple of Poseidon at Mount 
Taenarus. The fear and hatred of the Spartans made 
them overstep their religious scruples so far as to tear 
them from the altar and murder them. 

And about three years before the death of Pausanias 
there had arrived in the Peloponnese a most dangerous 
opponent; for, probably in the year 471 B.C., Themis- 
tocles had been ostracised from Athens. All the causes 
of this event, whereby the saviour of Greece found him- 
self an exile from his own country, are doubtful, and do 
not deserve discussion here. So violent an ambition 
as that of Themistocles was sure to give offence in 
Athens. He had many enemies. Causes of unpopu- 
larity would not be wanting, and a full acquaintance 
with the characteristics of the Athenian state does not 
allow us to feel much surprise when we see him driven 
into temporary exile. 

It is not impossible that he might have taken refuge 
in Sparta, had it not been for the enmity of that state to 



Ch. v.] The Rivalry of Athens and Sparta 107 

himself since the affair of the Athenian walls. To that 
enmity his expulsion may have been partly due; for 
Spartan influence told a good deal upon a certain section 
of the citizens of Athens. Themistocles turned then to 
Argos, humiliated by the arms of Sparta, discredited in 
the eyes of Greece by the part she had played in the 
Persian wars, compelled to see Mycenae and Tiryns in 
independent positions almost at her gates. The latter 
city was held against her by her own revolted slaves. 
The subsequent rehabihtation of Argos with the con- 
temporary anti-Spartan movements in the north of the 
Peloponnese can without question be in part ascribed to 
the restless spirit of Themistocles. Mycenae was taken 
by Argos after a long siege, and entirely destroyed. 
Tiryns succumbed with less resistance. The whole valley 
, of the Inachus was in Argive hands again, and Sparta's 
old rival again rose in dangerous strength upon her flank. 
Movements in Arcadia that endangered the Spartan 
position in an equal degree may also without much 
doubt be ascribed to the frequent journeys of Themis- 
tocles into that region, of which Thucydides tells us. 
All the mountain cantons with the exception of Mantinea 
joined in an attack on Sparta (468 ?). The danger was 
really great. The Spartans were vastly outnumbered, 
but their drill and morale brought them through vic- 
toriously. But the prestige of Sparta was thereby only 
slightly increased, and Themistocles was still an enemy 
and still m Argos. On the top of these disasters came 
the disgrace connected with the death of Pausanias. 

The overthrow of Pausanias brought some relief to 
them, for in his fall he pulled down Themistocles. The 
Spartans alleged that among the papers of Pausanias 
documents had been found which implicated Themis- 



io8 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. v. 

tocles in his treason. Upon this charge he was indicted 
before the Athenian assembly for high treason. His 
ostracism prevented him from making any personal de- 
fence, and the verdict went against him. The punish- 
ment for treason was death, with entire confiscation of 
property, accompanied by every circumstance of ignominy. 
A joint force of Athenians and Spartans attempted to 
arrest him in Argos. He fled from there, and was hotly 
pursued. His future career, with its romance of fact or 
fiction, does not directly concern us who are studying 
Greece in the age of Pericles. After a flight which took' 
him to Corcyra, to Epirus, to Pydna, and thence across 
the ^gean Sea to the coast of Asia Minor, the hero 
of Salamis, in a famous letter, threw himself upon the 
protection of Artaxerxes, the King of Persia : " I, Themis- 
tocles, have come to you ; I, who of all Greeks did your 
house the greatest injury, so long as I was compelled 
to defend myself against your father." He learnt the 
Persian language, and then had a personal interview with 
the Persian king. The king received him with delight, 
gave him a rich pension, and urged him to prosecute his 
designs against Greece ; but he died before anything was 
done. The circumstance and manner of his death were 
enveloped in legend before fifty years were passed — 
evidence of the impression he had made on the imagina- 
tion of Greece. His genius is written on a great page 
of Greek history. The Persian war had given him the 
opening that his restless and undisciplined activity de- 
manded. But when the crisis was over, Greece could 
provide him with no suitable career. The small scale of 
her politics gave no constitutional scope to an ambition 
such as his. His exile's death in Asia Minor was the 
result not only of his own restless and unscrupulous 



Ch. v.] The Rivalry of Athens and Sparta 109 

ambition, but also of the incapacity of Greece to make 
proper use of her greatest men. And Themistocles has 
in this respect many parallels. 

Complete Rupture between Athens and Sparta. 

Between the end of the Persian war and the year 
464 B.C., Sparta had sunk from the champion of the 
whole of Hellas to the half-discredited leader of the 
Peloponnese only. Athens, on the contrary, had risen 
from a subordinate member of the league controlled by 
Sparta to be the leader and almost the mistress of a 
league more dangerous than that over which Sparta held 
sway. Sparta unquestionably entertained towards Athens 
the jealous hatred of a defeated rival. 

By what steps Athens was increasing her control over 
the Delian League, and changing her position from that 
of a president to that of an absolute ruler, will be ex- 
plained at some length hereafter. She was at the same 
time prosecuting the war against Persia with conspicuous 
success. Her leader in this task was Cimon. In the 
domain of practice Athens produced no nobler son than 
this man. He was the son of Miltiades, the victor of 
Marathon, and by heredity and inclination took his stand 
with the conservative party in Athens. He succeeded 
here to the leading position of Aristides, and he possessed 
all that statesman's purity of character. If there ever 
had been any opposition on the side of the conservative 
party in Athens to the development of her naval strength, 
that had all disappeared. It was as a naval com- 
mander, and as a supporter of a forward policy against 
Persia, that Cimon won his greatest renown. But he had 
also a keen interest in the domestic development of 
Athens and her attitude to the other states of Greece 



J I o Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. v. 

To maintain friendship with Sparta was the root of all his 
policy. His perfect honesty in supporting this policy was 
never questioned, and Sparta recognised his good will to 
them by appointing him Proxenus in Athens. It was his 
duty in this capacity to protect any Spartan resident in 
or visiting Athens. His character and personality were 
eminently attractive. It is characteristic of the Athenian 
state that his personal beauty should have counted for 
something in securing him support. He was very wealthy, 
and possessed large gardens in Athens, which he threw 
open to all the citizens. 

Under his guidance the Athenian fleet struck Persia 
blow on blow. The details unfortunately are either lost 
to us entirely or narrated by later authors with so much 
romantic colouring as to be quite untrustworthy. But 
it is plain that Persia received in the Levant a blow as 
crushing as Salamis or Mycale. In 466, near the mouth 
of the Eurymedon in Pamphylia, the Persian fleet was 
destroyed, and after a fierce struggle her land forces also 
were defeated with very great slaughter. It was long 
before Persian influence counted for anything again on 
the waters of the Mediterranean. Cimon, with the per- 
sonal qualities of Aristides, had obtained the successes 
of Themistocles. 

Opposition to Cimon was not wanting. The Athenian 
democracy had entered on a path that seemed •blocked 
by his personal supremacy. And now the party of ad- 
vancing democracy possessed a leader, the ablest and 
greatest that it was ever to possess. Pericles was about 
thirty years of age. His birth, therefore, was three or 
four years before the battle of Marathon. He was some 
fifteen years of age when Xerxes' expedition came and 
went, and doubtless on his mind, maturing more rapidly 



Ch. v.] The Rivalry of A I hens and Sparta iii 

under the stress of such events even than is usual in 
the warm south, Salamis, Plataea, and Mycale had made 
a deep impression. He was related to great families 
through both father and mother, and to great famihes 
that had championed the democratic side. His father 
Xanthippus had prosecuted Miltiades, the father of 
Cimon, and his mother was the niece of that Clisthenes 
who was the real founder of the untempered Athenian 
democracy. Of his personality and opinions some further 
account will be given in a future chapter. Here it is 
enough to say that, though we may not yet regard him 
as the recognised leader of the people that he afterwards 
became, his great talents, both for speech and action, 
already marked him out for a great career in the near 
future. To lead the party of advanced democracy was to 
attack Cimon, against whom he had hereditary hostility. 

The first instance we have of such an attack is with 
reference to the expedition against Thasos that had been 
led by Cimon. The quarrel with this island had arisen 
out of a dispute concerning the mines upon the mainland 
of Thrace opposite. Athens had recently planted a 
colony upon the Strymon, and now demanded some 
share in the neighbouring mines, to the detriment of the 
interests of Thasos. The friction between Athens and 
her aUies was already considerable ; the difficulty about 
the mines led to an immediate rebellion. Thasos was at 
once blockaded by the Athenian fleet, and after a resist- 
ance of two years was compelled to accept the terms of 
complete submission that were imposed by Athens (463). 

Cimon returned victoriously from his expedition, and 
his return was the occasion for the first public appearance 
of Pericles of which we have any knowledge. He 
charged Cimon with having accepted bribes from Alex- 



1 1 2 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. v. 

ander, the Macedonian king, to abstain from making con- 
quests on the mainland opposite to Thasos. The charge 
was sufficiently ridiculous by reason of Cimon's wealth 
and character, and he was acquitted. But soon another 
contest took place between these rivals on a greater issue. 
\j When in 465 Thasos rebelled from Athens, defeat was 

certain unless she found allies. She applied to Sparta for 
assistance. Athens and Sparta were still nominally allies, 
for the creation of the Delian League had not openly 
destroyed the alliance that had subsisted between them 
since the days of the Persian w^ar. But the Thasians 
hoped that Sparta's jealousy of Athens might induce her 
to disregard the alliance. And they reckoned rightly. 
The Spartan fleet was so weak that no interference upon 
the sea could be thought of, but if Attica were attacked 
by land the Athenians w^ould be forced to draw off 
some part of their armament from Thasos. Sparta gave 
a secret promise that this attack should be made. But 
before they could fulfil their promise their own city was 
overwhelmed by a terrible earthquake. We never get 
that full vision of Spartan that we do of Athenian affairs, 
and the details of this catastrophe are far from certain. 
But we are told that nearly all the houses were destroyed. 
Only five houses were left standing, and twenty thousand 
of the inhabitants lost their lives. King Archidamus 
saved the state from even more appalling ruin. While 
the inhabitants were dazed with the catastrophe, he 
ordered the alarm-trumpet to be blow^n ; the military 
instincts of the Spartans answered to the call, and all 
that were left assembled outside of the city safe from the 
falHng ruins. Archidamus's presence of mind saved 
them from even greater danger than that of earthquake. 
The disaster seemed to the masses of Helots that sur- 



Ch. v.] The Rivalry of Athens and Sparta 113 

rounded Sparta clear evidence of the wrath of the god 
Poseidon. He was the *' earth-shaker,'^ and not long 
before Helots who had taken refuge in his temple had 
been dragged out and slaughtered. The Helots seized 
arms, therefore, and from all sides rushed upon Sparta. 
Thanks to Archidamus's action, they found the Spartans 
collected and ready for battle. They fell back upon 
Messenia, and concentrated their strength round Mount 
Ithome, the natural Acropolis of that district. If the 
Perioeci had risen Sparta's sun would have set for ever. 
Fortunately the majority of them stood firm, and Sparta 
had time to breathe (464). 

But the danger was very great. Aeimnestus, a Spartan 
general of great renown, with three hundred Spartans, 
was defeated and slain and his force annihilated. After 
wards the Helots were no longer able to withstand the 
Spartans in the open field, but they held out behind the 
fortifications of Ithome, and all the efforts of their op- 
ponents, never very successful in sieges, failed to dislodge 
them. At last, in 464, Sparta had to appeal to her allies 
for help against her own slaves ; and, as Athens was her 
ally, she appealed to Athens. 

Should the help be granted ? On that point there 
was great difference of opinion and keen dispute at 
Athens. Cimon advocated the granting of Sparta's 
demand with all his strength. He appealed to the 
Athenians not to allow Greece to go lame on one foot, 
not to deprive their own city of her natural yoke-fellow. 
Cimon regarded the Spartans not as competitors for ex- 
clusive supremacy in Greece, but as fellow-labourers for 
the common good of Greece. The Athenian and Spartan 
ideals of statesmanship and life he conceived of not as 
exclusive but as complementary; and we, with oar fuller 

8 



114 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. v. 

experience and knowledge of what was yet in store for 
Greece, must partially share his appreciation of Sparta 
and altogether admire the generosity of his political ideal. 
To stifle the state jealousies of Greece, to gain a broader 
basis for political and military action, that we clearly see 
was the one thing needful for the practical life of Greece. 

But there was much to be said on the other side, and 
it was said by Ephialtes and Pericles. The whole of 
Pericles' foreign policy is founded on the assumption 
that union between Athens and Sparta was undesirable 
and impossible. In everything they stood at opposite 
poles of thought. Athens represented democracy, Sparta 
oligarchy ; and these were principles that could not exist 
tranquilly side by side. If Sparta were victorious and 
strong she would try to spread oligarchical principles ; 
Athens under similar circumstances would try to establish 
democracies among her neighbours. How little capable 
Sparta was of loyal co-operation with Athens had been 
shown immediately after the Persian war, before Athens 
had risen to her present power ; and we have to admit 
the impossibility of any voluntary union between Athens 
and Sparta giving to Greece the strength that she would 
require if she were to continue an independent existence. 

Cimon gained the vote of the people. He went at 
once with a force of four thousand heavy-armed soldiers 
to Ithome. Athenian soldiers enjoyed a great reputation 
for their ability in the conduct of sieges ; but, despite 
their arrival, the Helots in Ithome still held out. And 
soon the Spartans grew suspicious of the Athenian con- 
tingent. The failure of Sparta was so clearly to the 
interest of Athens that the Spartans could not believe 
that the Athenians were in earnest in trying to prevent 
it ; and at last Cimon was told that Sparta no longer had 



Ch. v.] The Rivalry of Athens and Sparta 115 

need of the Athenian force. The insult was all the more 
evident because none of the other allies were dismissed. 
Cimon at once returned to Athens. The entire failure 
of his expedition in conciliating Sparta, and the insult 
that it had brought upon the Athenian state, must have 
decreased his popularity. And on his return he still 
opposed those complete democratic changes that Pericles 
and Ephialtes were at this time introducing into the 
state. A vote of ostracism was demanded. The requisite 
number of votes fell to Cimon, and he had to retire into 
exile (461). Never was a vote of ostracism less justifi- 
able. Cimon sought after no tyranny, and throughout 
his whole career is an upright and patriotic citizen. 
His ostracism doubtless allowed the democratic changes, 
in any case inevitable, to be accomplished without much 
opposition or obstruction, but it also deprived Athens of 
her best soldier at a time when she needed all her mili- 
tary talent. For Athens could not forget Sparta's insult. 
In 461 she renounced the alliance with her that had 
existed since the Persian wars ; and that this rupture did 
not mean neutrality was made clear when, immediately 
afterwards, Athens contracted an alliance with Argos, 
always the enemy and now the dangerous enemy of 
Sparta, and with the Thessalians, who also had grounds 
of hostility to Sparta. Under such circumstances war 
could not be long in coming. 

Note. — The references to Grote and Curtius can easily be found. 
For the Persian war Herodotus is the one great authority. But 
Plutarch's Lives of Themistocles and Aristides are also of great 
interest and value. For the later rivalry of Athens with Sparta his 
Life of Cimon is especially valuable. For the formation of the 
Athenian confederacy see especially Grote, chs. xliv. , xlv. The early 
chapters of the first book of Thucydides are the most important 
original authority for the civil wars that now begin. 




ACRO CORINTHUS. 



CHAPTER VI. 



CIVIL WARS IN GREECE. 



It is necessary now to give some account of the wars 
that broke out in Greece through the quarrel of Athens 
and Sparta. But the briefest account most suffice ; for 
the wars themselves are tedious in the extreme, and 
without any importance for universal history. The 
.military and political history of Greece is indeed, as a 
rule, abortive. It leads us nowhere. In reading Roman 
history we feel the great importance of battles and con- 
stitutional changes ; as we look at them we see the 
stream of the progress of the world widening and taking 
shape. But in the wars and politics of Greece it is very 
different. The Persian war did indeed save European 
civilisation, and deserves the highest gratitude of pos- 
terity ; but the wars that follow are a confused melde 
that lead nowhere and settle nothing. 



Ch. VI.] Civil Wars in Greece 1 1 7 

And yet they have a negative significance of a good 
deal of importance. They give us clear proof of the 
failure of Greece in political and military organisation. 
The great need of the time was to secure a basis of order 
sufficiently wide and firm for the development and 
security of that civilisation which, upon the intellectual 
side, Greece had so worthily begun. For the present, 
the fortunes of civilisation were committed to her ; it 
remained to be seen whether she would be strong enough 
to protect them. For this purpose some power larger 
than any individual city state, and more coherent than 
the union that had existed during the Persian war, was 
necessary. And this might come to pass either by 
some federal union such as we see a glimmering of 
during the Persian war, or through the rise of one of 
the existing states into supremacy over the others. 
Whether the first could, at this period of the world's 
history, have made a sufficiently strong government may 
be doubted ; and certainly the rival vanities and fierce 
commercial jealousies of Greece made such a federal 
union impossible. And the wars at which we are now 
going to glance seem to prove that of the two great 
powers of Greece, Sparta lacked the initiative and 
Athens the solidity that were necessary for conquest. 

The affair of Ithome had ended, as we have seen, in 
the definite rupture of those weak bonds that still held 
Athens and Sparta as allies together, A policy clearly 
anti-Spartan in its character was at once adopted by 
Athens. The alliance with Argos and Thessaly clearly 
implied hostility to Sparta, and the alliance with Megara 
that followed was even more important. For Megara 
possessed territory of great strategic importance. The 
mountain mass of Geraneia, filling up the Isthmus from 



1 1 8 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. Vl. 

side to side, and commanding it far more really than 
Corinth did, was wholly within her territory. Whilst 
Megara was an ally of Sparta, Athens was always liable 
to invasion. If Geraneia was in the hands of Athens' 
friends, she could feel tolerably secure. Just at this time 
between Corinth and Megara the hostility which in 
Greece was the normal relation between neighbours was 
embittered by some dispute about boundaries. Corinth 
was the stronger state, and Megara appealed to Sparta 
as her natural protector, for she was a member of the 
Spartan Alliance. But the Helot rising, either still con- 
tinuing or just recently subdued, left Sparta in no humour 
for interference in any foreign affairs, and Megara in her 
distress turned to Athens. She, in her present mood, 
thought no responsibilities and dangers too great for the 
sake of glory and the extension of rule. Besides, in the 
present instance, the actual advantages offered, strategic 
and commercial, were so great, that there was no room 
for hesitation. An alliance with Megara was concluded, 
and that meant war with Corinth, the ally of Sparta 

(461). 

This struggle in itself might seem to demand all the 
energies of Athens. But besides this she was all the 
time engaged in the war with Persia, which just at this 
moment entered on a very important stage. For Egypt 
had rebelled against Persia. Since the war with Greece 
the Persian king had laid upon Egypt heavier taxes than 
before, and the result of that war gave his subjects 
courage to rebel. It was Inarus, the King of Libya, who 
first raised the standard of a revolt which soon spread 
through nearly the whole of Egypt. But when, in 459, he 
knew that the Persian army was marching against him, 
he found that his own forces would not avail to resist the 



Ch. VI.] Civil Wars in Greece 1 1 9 

attack, and appealed to Athens, as head of the Delian 
League. If Egypt were torn from Persia, her fleet would 
be annihilated, and she would suffer as severe a blow as 
she had received during the expedition against Greece. 
Athens therefore gave vigorous help ; two hundred 
triremes were at this time engaged in an expedition 
against Cyprus, and these were despatched to Egypt to 
assist Inarus. We know, unfortunately, very little about 
the course of this interesting war, and almost nothing in 
detail. We know, however, that the Athenians and their 
Egyptian allies were at first brilliantly successful. The 
Persian fleet was again destroyed ; the Persian army was 
defeated and its leader killed. It seemed as though 
Egypt would cease to be a portion of the dominions of 
Persia. But even if these high hopes had been fulfilled, 
Athens was still using in Egypt troops that were badly 
needed in the really more important war at home. 

Still, even without these troops Athens was surprisingly 
successful in that war. Sparta as yet took no part in it, 
being either still occupied with the revolted Helots or 
not yet recovered from the exhaustion consequent on 
that revolt ; for the date of the submission of the Helots 
is not certain. But soon Athens, with Argos, Thessaly, 
and Megara as her allies, was pitted against Corinth and 
^gina, for that island had thrown in her lot with the 
enemy. Athens was not uniformly successful ; yet, on the 
whole, victory crowned her arms in the most surprising 
way. The allied fleet of the enemy was defeated (at 
Cecryphaleia, 459 B.C.). The -z^ginetan fleet was de- 
stroyed and the island blockaded, and so hard was the 
siege pressed that clearly submission was only a matter 
of time. The Corinthians possessed no navy whereby 
they might succour ^-Egina, but they hoped that an attack 



120 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. vi. 

on Megara might draw off some of the blockading forces, 
for Athens was depleted of men by the blockade and the 
expedition to Egypt. The territory of Megara was there- 
fore invaded ; but the Corinthians had underestimated 
the tenacity of their opponents, for Athens met the dif- 
ficulty without calling off a single man from ^gina. All 
those who remained in the city, as being either too 
young or too old for the dangerous expedition that 
had been sent across the seas, were led out by Myronides, 
a veteran of the Persian war. An engagement took 
place in which both sides claimed the victory, but the 
Corinthians retired from the field of battle and allowed 
the Athenians to erect the trophy. On their return 
home, however, the Corinthians had to face the scorn 
of their fellow-townsmen for having failed to defeat an 
army of boys and greybeards, and therefore went to try 
their fortunes again after an interval of twelve days. 
But this time the Athenians gained a complete victory, 
and the Corinthian army was driven in disorder back to 
their own territory. A considerable portion of the army 
lost its way and entered by mistake a field surrounded 
by a great ditch except at the narrow entrance. The 
Athenians discovered their mistake, surrounded the 
place with troops, and killed their now defenceless 
opponents to the last man (458). 

At home meanwhile the Athenians were taking a step 
that increased their strength more than many battles. 
Themistocles had been the first to insist that the real 
strength of Athens lay in the wooden walls of her ships. 
He would have preferred, we are told, that Athens should 
be abandoned altogether and the Piraeus adopted as the 
capital ; but since that could not be, he had induced 
them to fortify the Piraeus as strongly as Athens herself. 



Ch. VI.j Civil Wars in Greece 1 2 1 

Since then more and more had Athens developed into a 
maritime power. Soon she would dare to claim equality 
with Sparta, even on land ; but it was on the sea that 
her superiority was incontestable. To unite her more 
closely with the sea was the desire of the democratic 
leader. At present, however invincible her fleets might 
be, it was possible for a superior land force to enter 
Attica and starve her to submission. It was impossible 
to abandon Athens and the Acropolis with all their 
religious associations and memories, but might it not be 
possible to join Athens to the Piraeus and the sea by 
lines of fortified walls ? They would require to be of a 
magnitude quite unparalleled in Greece. It was four and 
a half miles to the Piraeus. To build nine miles of wall 
impregnable to the siege apparatus of the time w^as a task 
not to be lightly entered upon. But Athens had already 
had some experience of the work at Megara, where they 
had connected the town with the seaport of Nisaea by 
two walls. The thing was clearly -not impossible, and 
upon Pericles' advice the work was begun. 

The extraordinary energy of Athens made it plain to 
^ Sparta that if she were not content to see herself w^holly 
eclipsed she must interfere at once. The Phocians 
had overrun Doris — a quite unimportant state, and yet 
closely connected with the Spartans, who regarded it as 
their earliest home and " mother-state." With the nomi- 
nal object of restoring it to freedom, the Spartans crossed 
the Corinthian Gulf, and entered Phocis with an army of 
11,500 heavy-armed soldiers, and doubtless the usual 
contingent of light-armed. The size of the force showed 
that they had some other intention than their avowed 
one. The Phocians quickly submitted ; the nominal 
end of the expedition was obtained. But now the 



122 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Cn.vi. 

Athenians garrisoned the passes of Geraneia and sent 
round a fleet to the Corinthian Gulf, so as to cut off 
the return of the Spartans both by sea and land. At 
the same time the oligarchical party in Athens entered 
into treasonous negotiations with them for the overthrow 
of their political opponents and the destruction of the long 
walls. The Spartans marched down through Boeotia and 
encamped at Tanagra, upon the borders of Attica, ready 
to interfere in any way that might seem feasible. The 
self-confidence of the Athenians was too great to allow 
them to stand on the defensive. It was determined to 
anticipate the designs of the Spartans by attacking them, 
and the whole Athenian army, 14,000 men strong, marched 
out to Tanagra. While the armies were drawn up oppo- 
site to one another, Cimon appeared before the Athenian 
commanders, and asked that, despite the vote of ostracism 
against him, he might be allowed to take his place in 
the ranks. But the prevalent distrust of the oligarchs 
was so great that their leader was not allowed to share in 
the dangers of the coming battle. Cimon therefore had to 
retire, after having urged his friends to prove his inno- 
cence by their valour. The battle was stubbornly 
contested ; but when the Thessalian cavalry deserted 
during the course of the engagement, the Athenians were 
no longer able to hold their own. But the Pelopon- 
nesians had suffered so heavily that they made no attempt 
to advance on Athens, and were content to make their 
way back through the passes of Geraneia home (457). And 
indeed the battle rather strengthened the confidence of 
the defeated than of the victorious side. Cimon's friends 
had fallen to the number of a hundred after displaying 
great valour. Pericles had distinguished himself; and 
through the whole state there went the encouraging 



Ch. VI.] Civil Wars in Greece 123 

feeling that they had measured themselves with the in- 
vincible Spartans and not been found altogether wanting. 
It might seem almost w^orth the loss of the battle that, 
upon the motion of Pericles, Cimon was recalled from 
ostracism. On his return some arrangement seems to 
have been made whereby he devoted all his attention 
to foreign affairs, and left Pericles undisturbed in his 
domestic policy. 

After the check of Tanagra the series of Athenian 
successes recommenced even more brilliantly than before. 
Boeotia, during the time that the Spartan army remained 
there, had been re-organised under the rule of Thebes, 
and upon oligarchical principles throughout. Athens 
could not endure so plainly hostile a force upon her 
flank. Sixty-two days after the battle of Tanagra an 
Athenian force, under Myron ides, entered Boeotia, and 
in a great battle at Oenophyta (456), of which wx know 
nothing but the fact and the result, entirely overthrew 
the Theban army. The smaller cities were freed from 
the supremacy of Thebes, and the oligarchies overthrown. 
Even in Thebes the defeat brought about a political 
change and the establishment of a democracy. The 
cities of Boeotia became members of the Athenian 
Alliance and furnished troops. And soon afterwards 
Phocis, already hostile to Sparta for her recent raid into 
their territory, joined Athens also. Soon afterwards the 
long blockade of ^Egina came to a successful conclusion : 
the fortifications were destroyed, the ships of w^ar sur- 
rendered, the obligation to pay tribute for the future 
recognised. And meanwhile the long walls that con- 
nected Athens with the sea w^ere completed (456). The 
eastern wall ran to the roadstead of Phalerum, the western 
wall to the harbour of the Piraeus. The significance of 



I 24 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. vi. 

these walls on the immediate future of Athenian history 
can hardly be overestimated. Athens was now joined 
with the sea. The Athenian army might be defeated 
and Attica overrun, but while the walls stood and the 
sea was in her power Athens was safe. If Paris had 
had safe communication with the sea during the siege of 
1870 how enormous would have been the change in 
the campaign ! The service that the walls performed for 
Athens was somewhat analogous. The year 456 gave 
new evidence of the unapproachable power of Athens at 
sea. Her admiral Tolmides sailed round the Pelopon- 
nese. He burnt the Spartan dockyard at Gythium, and 
nowhere met with any resistance at sea. Corinth found 
herself hemmed in on all sides by the dependencies of 
Athens. On the west, Megara, ^^gina, and Troezen 
closed her round. On the east, at the very narrowest 
part of the Corinthian Gulf, the Athenians had captured 
the important station of Naupactus, and when the Helots 
on Mount Ithome surrendered on condition that they 
should be allowed to depart freely, they were planted in 
Naupactus by Athens. The bitter enemies of Sparta, and 
therefore of Corinth, they held the gate of the western 
waters against her. It was by her commerce that Corinth 
lived, and now she could only carry on her commercial 
enterprises with the permission of Athens. For the 
jealousy which she then created she was to pay dearly at 
the time of the Peloponnesian war. 

Athens had reached the highest point of her material 
power. The .'Egean Sea was hers, and hers was the 
centre of Greece. No power on earth could cope with 
her on the waters ; on land Sparta could boast no assured 
superiority. The extent of territory that she controlled 
was greater than any that in historical times had belonged 



Ch.vi.] Civil Wars in Greece 125 

to any state of Greece. Her revenues were, for the 
age, immense. And her intellectual supremacy, though 
doubtless to contemporaries not so important as her 
material greatness, helped to increase her splendour in 
the eyes of Greece. But this increase in dominion was 
too sudden a growth to last. Such extraordinary energy 
was feverish, and could not be permanent. She could 
not hope to win many victories with those who were too 
old or too young for regular service. Side by side with 
her conquests went the development of the democracy, 
and we shall see shortly how quite unsuitable were the 
institutions of the democracy for the management of an 
empire. And so the might of Athens from this point 
changes only to decrease. 

Athens loses her Land-Empire. 

The first sign of a turn in the fortunes of Athens came 
from Egypt. Her attempt to wrest that great province 
from the hands of the Persian king, after a brilliant begin- 
ning, failed completely. Persia put forth all her energies 
in order to retain her hold on Egypt. Megabyzus was 
despatched with a fleet of three hundred triremes and 
an army of three hundred thousand men to reduce Inarus 
and his Greek allies. Against so vast a force the Greeks 
failed to repeat the miracle of the years 480 and 479. 
Inarus and his Athenians were shut up in the island of 
Prosopitis, formed by two branches of the Nile and a 
canal. After a fruitless blockade the canal was drained, 
and then the whole army marched over. A vigorous 
resistance ended in the flight of six thousand Greeks to 
the sea-coast. Only a few of them ever saw Athens again. 
And, to increase their disaster, a fleet of fifty Athenian 
ships entered the Nile unaware of what had happened. 



1 2 6 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. VI. 

They were attacked by land and water, and almost all 
were destroyed. With such complete disaster the Athenian 
campaign in Egypt ended (455). This failure in Egypt 
probably rather strengthened the hands of Athens, for 
it left her now free to turn her whole attention to the 
complications of Continental Greece. But her high self- 
confidence was somewhat lessened, and the next thing 
that we have to chronicle is the conclusion of a truce for 
five years between Athens and Sparta (450). This 
temporary break in hostilities, for it pretended to be 
nothing more, was concluded through the influence of 
Cimon, who on his return from exile was still an admirer 
and well-wisher of Sparta. And Argos chose this occasion 
to leave the Athenian Alliance and make peace with 
Sparta. She had gained nothing from Athens and had 
not given much ; but her defection seems to show that 
the prestige of Athens was waning, and that her policy 
wa;5 creating irritation and suspicion in the minds of her 
allies. 

For ^\^ years, however, peace subsisted in Central 
Greece. And during these years the contest with Persia 
was renewed by Cimon with conspicuous success. The 
war is of importance, and it would be interesting to watch 
in detail the last struggle between the great combatants. 
But our authorities here are meagre, and, except for the 
main features, contradictory ; nor does the war in the 
PLast bear directly upon the development of Athenian 
power in Central Greece. It is enough then to say that 
in 449 Cimon at the head of the Athenian armament 
was engaged in the attempt to reduce Cyprus, when he 
was attacked by the Persian fleet. He died before the 
engagement, but his spirit animated his troops. And off 
Salamis, in Cyprus, the Persians were entirely defeated on 



Ch. VI.] Civil Wars in Greece 127 

the same day, both by sea and land. The defeat was an 
exceedingly severe one, and now the Persian king ac- 
quiesced in an arrangement whereby the status quo was 
accepted and all hostilities terminated.* It is forty years 
before there is any further collision between Greeks and 
Persians. Meanwhile the fleet returned with Cimon's 
body. Athens never again produced a commander of such 
distinction. 

His death was no doubt a great loss to the Athenians 
in the wars that immediately followed. There must 
have been preparations of which we know nothing, or 
else the rule of Athens must have been so irritating that 
at the very first opportunity all her subjects spontaneously 
flung off her authority. The first blow came from Bceotia. 
There by a sudden revolution the democracies were over- 
thrown, and several of the cities of Boeotia declared 
against the Athenian supremacy. It was clear that the 
movement must be suppressed at once. Tolmides — a 
very prominent general of the time — wished to attack 
immediately with the small force at that moment avail- 
able. Pericles urged the necessity of longer preparations 
and a larger force. But Tolmides carried the day, and 
with a small force in which there were only one thousand 
Athenian troops he marched into Boeotia. The Athenian 
forces were surprised at Coronea (447) and entirely 
defeated. Tolmides and many were slain ; the rest were 
taken prisoners. The Egyptian catastrophe had already 
depleted Athens ; she could ill afford to spare any more 
citizens. To get back those who had been taken 

* This is the so-called Peace of Callias. It is an open question 
whether it was a precise arrangement or a tacit agreement to accept 
things as they were. Its date is as uncertain as its terms ; but is, 
perhaps, to be placed as late as 444- 



128 Greece in the Age of Pericles Ch. vi. 

prisoners, she consented to abandon Boeotia. The 
oligarchs at once came back ; again Boeotia was or- 
ganised under the supremacy of Thebes; and Athens had 
upon the north a jealous and victorious rival, embittered 
by the memory of a recent humiliation. The loss of 
Boeotia was followed by blows still more dangerous. 

First, in the summer of 445 the cities of the great and 
most important island of Euboea revolted from Athens. 
Euboea had been from the first a member of the Delian 
League ; her position and her wealth made her friend- 
ship or her hostility of the first importance to Athens. 
Pericles with all the available forces marched to repress 
the revolt. But no sooner was his back turned than the 
storm broke from the west. Megara had made up her 
quarrel with Corinth and Sparta. With the help of troops 
from these two states the Athenian garrison was driven 
out ; only in Nissea did a small handful still hold out. 
And the worst was yet to come. For now, doubtless as 
the result of careful pre-arrangement, a Spartan army of 
considerable size, with their King Pleistoanax at its head, 
marched out through the Isthmus and the now open 
passes of Geraneia straight upon Athens. Boeotia, 
Euboea, Megara, Sparta — attacked by these formidable 
foes and taken by surprise, it seemed impossible for 
Athens to survive. Pericles turned hastily back from 
Euboea. But Pleistoanax made no attack on Athens her- 
self. The Spartan army got as far as the plain of Eleusis, 
within fifteen miles of Athens, and then turned back and 
retired over the Isthmus to Sparta. Had Pleistoanax 
counted on the absence of the Athenian army in Euboea, 
and thus come unprepared to cope with the rapid return 
of Pericles? Or was the later suspicion correct, that 
Pericles had simply bribed him to suspend the attack ? 



Ch. VI.] Civil Wa?'s in Greece 129 

Many considerations lead us to adopt the second view. 
Pleistoanax was suspected of taking bribes by his own 
countrymen. He was condemned to a fine of fifteen 
talents, and, not being able to pay it, fled and lived for 
nineteen years an exile in Arcadia. Further, this liability 
to corruption is at all times a characteristic of the public 
men of Sparta; and Pericles subsequently refused to 
account for the expenditure of a large sum of money, 
alleging only that it had been spent on a necessary 
purpose. So the greatest danger of all had rolled away. 
Megara could not be retaken : it was doubtless held by 
a Spartan garrison. But from this day forth Athens 
hated Megara as she hated no state in Greece, though 
she hated many. 

But the Spartans could not get at Euboea, and thither 
Pericles marched. We hear of no resistance, and quickly 
the island became a portion of the iVthenian power once 
more. But not on the old terms : Euboea was no 
longer a free member of the confederacy. She was now 
strictly subject to Athens. Everywhere the oligarchical 
constitutions were destroyed and democracies were set 
up. All adherents of the old system were expelled and 
not allowed to return. And the new democracies were 
not free to govern themselves as they liked. They were 
free only as long as they freely chose to be subjects of 
Athens. An inscription has been preserved giving us in 
full the terms of the agreement with Athens in the case 
of the city of Chalcis, and Chalcis was almost certainly 
on a similar footing with the other cities of the island. 
Every citizen of Chalcis is to swear on oath " I will not 
revolt from the people of the Athenians in any way or 
shape, in word or deed, or be an accomplice in revolt. 
If any one revolts I will inform the Athenians. I will 

9 



130 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. vi. 

pay the Athenians the tribute, . . . and I will be a faith- 
ful and true ally to the utmost of my power. I will 
help and assist the Athenian people if any one injures 
them, and I will obey their commands."* The inscription 
goes on to say, " Any one who refuses to take the oath 
shall be disfranchised, and his goods shall be confiscated 
and a tenth given to Zeus Olympius." At Histiaea, in 
the north of the island, the inhabitants were expelled and 
their lands divided among Athenian settlers, who retained 
their full rights as citizens of Athens, and were to act 
for the future as a garrison of occupation (445). 

These losses and efforts had so exhausted Athens that 
the prosecution of the war with Sparta was not to be 
thought of Sparta, on her side, feared foreign enterprise 
too much to desire to push her advantages further. And 
thus in 445, by mutual arrangement, a treaty for thirty 
years was arranged between them. The terms must 
carefully be noticed, for they become of great importance 
at the time of the outbreak of the Peloponnesian war. 
(i) Athens surrenders all that she held upon the main- 
land outside of Attica. Megara and Boeotia were already 
gone ; all that she held on Peloponnesian soil must go 
too — Nisaea Pegse, Troezen, Achsea : of her great land- 
power almost nothing was left. (2) Otherwise the two 
alliances remained as they were. Any independent state 
in Greece might join either party ; but all efforts to with- 
draw states from their present allegiance were expressly 
forbidden. (3) Until the thirty years were ended all 
disputes between the two principals were to be settled 
by an appeal to arbitration and not by force of arms. 

The rise and fall of the continental power of Athens 

* I take the translation of this inscription direct from Mr. Evelyn 
Abbott's History of Greece^ vol. ii. 



Ch. VI.] Civil Wars in Greece \ 131 

are so rapid, the acquisition of power is so transient and 
so entirely without results, that it is hard to follow this 
period intelligently or with interest. But for Athens the 
general result was important. After a short period of 
brilliant success she had loit all her territory on the 
mainland outside of Attica. She was now a sea-power 
only. That was a real advantage to her, not smaller than 
the loss of France or of Hanover to England. For to 
defend a land-empire she would need a far stronger army 
than she could put on foot, while at sea she was supreme 
and apparently invincible. And for Greece the change 
produced by these years is also important. It was not 
quite thirty-five years since the Persian war. Men 
fought at Tanagra who had fought at Plataea. But in 
those thirty-five years all possibility of a general union 
of Hellas has disappeared. The whole of Greece is 
divided into two camps, which have declared hostility to 
be their normal relation by limiting the period of peace 
to thirty years. 

The Development of the Delian League into the 
Athenian Empire. 

During this period of feverish struggle on the mainland 
of Greece, the relations between Athens and the other 
members of the Delian League had been undergoing a 
rapid transformation. The result of this transformation 
is clear, though the stages by which it was accomplished 
are not. In 476 Athens was the president of a league 
consisting of members voluntarily submitting to its rule ; 
in 445 the relations of Athens and the other states are 
those of a mistress-city to her subject dependencies, 
those of a conqueror to the enemy he has conquered. 
The league is compulsory, not voluntary ; tribute exacted 



132 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. vi. 

by actual or possible coercion has taken the place of 
voluntary contributions; the Delian League has disap- 
peared, and given place to an Athenian Empire. 

To understand this change it is necessary in the first 
place to recall the original character of the Delian 
League. That league had sprung out of the Panhel- 
lenic union that had been brought about by the pressure 
of the Persian war. The bad conduct of Sparta as head 
of that confederacy had made her retirement necessary, 
and she took with her all the states of the mainland. 
Athens, by right of her character and her past achieve- 
ments, stepped into her place as leader of the maritime 
states, first in nominal alliance with Sparta, but since the 
civil wars of the mainland in clear hostihty. 

The arrangement of the Delian League had been 
largely the work of Aristides. His reputation for fairness 
had given the allies full confidence in the justice of his 
assessments. What these arrangements were neither the 
few chapters that Thucydides devotes to the subject, nor 
the hints in Plutarch's Lives, nor the existing inscriptions, 
allow us to determine as fully as we should like to do. 
But if some points are doubtful, we know enough to allow 
us to understand the general features of the Delian 
League in its earliest shape, and the chief stages through 
which it passed to its later form. It had been formed 
to carry on the war against Persia, and to give to its 
members security in their lately won liberties. To this 
end an army and a navy, a fund of money and a recog- 
nised leader, were necessary. 

I. Athens was of course the leader. No other state 
in the aUiance could possibly command the same amount 
of obedience. She was at first by no means a despot 
city. Representatives from the various states met year 



Ch. VI.] Civil Wars in Greece 133 

by year in the island of Delos, there to deliberate 
on matters concerning the whole confederacy, and 
especially on the military and naval operations of the 
year. That every state had a vote is certain. But of 
the procedure of the synod we know almost nothing. 
Yet both the future history of the league and analogous 
cases in Greek history go to show that Athens would 
not be merely the executive officer of the decrees of the 
league. Her power and prestige would give her from 
the first a commanding position. 

2. The contributions to the common fund were ar- 
ranged by Aristides. . That we know ; and we know also 
that these contributions amounted at first to 460 talents 
(;^92,ooo). It is certain, too, that at stated intervals the 
contributions were revised, and increased or diminished 
according to the necessities of the moment and the 
wealth of tne states. But all the allies did not pay the 
same kind of contribution. Some paid money only. 
Some, and those the larger states, contributed ships and 
men, and perhaps money too : all were apparently called 
on for military service when occasion demanded. Ships, 
men, and money, in carefully fixed quantities and amounts, 
were supplied by the allies, so long as the league remained 
free, according to the original assessment of Aristides. 

3. At the head of every expedition, naval or military, 
stood an Athenian commander. This followed, according 
to Greek ideas, necessarily from the position of Athens at 
the head of the league. As Spartan officers necessarily 
commanded in the Panhellenic League of 480, so 
Athenian officers in the Dehan League. The Synod of 
Delos, whatever its exact functions, did not appoint the 
commander of troops or ships. 

4. The centre of the whole league during its early 



T 34 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. vi. 

and independent period was Delos. That small and 
barren island had been once the great religious centre of 
the Ionian race. Its glory had declined, but still there 
was the great temple of Apollo. The place was full of 
venerable legends and memories of the past. This then 
was naturally chosen as the centre of the revival of the 
Ionian race ; for as such the Delian league must have 
been regarded. Here the yearly meetings of the synod 
were held ; here was the treasury of the contributions of 
the allies. 

The general aims of the league must commend them- 
selves to every modern observer. That some check 
should be given to the state-independence of Greece ; 
that some union should be created in which each separate 
state should recognise something higher than her own 
personal interests ; that some broad political basis should 
be formed capable of insuring stability, — something of 
this sort was quite essential if Greece was to remain 
independent. But it may be doubted whether it was 
possible to make the Delian League strong enough for 
the task that it would have to face. The league was 
the same sort of organisation that the supporters of 
Imperial Federation propose to create : a confederacy 
of independent states with a common origin, and sup- 
posed common interests for common purposes. But 
in Greece the instinct for state-independence was so 
deeply rooted that even the slack bonds of the league 
proved too tight. No single state in its internal govern- 
ment showed cohesion or a sufficient discipline ; and it 
was little likely, therefore, that their union should 
display these qualities. There was no power except 
that of physical force that would in the long run be 
able to hold the various states together. Panhellenic 



Ch. VI.] Civil Wars in Greece 135 

patriotism was hardly felt ; the god Apollo was losing 
his power ; Athens w^as unable to inspire the states with 
sufficient personal veneration for herself, nor did she 
try to keep the league together by conciliation and 
kindness. 

The Decay of the Delian League. 

What if any one of the states refused to pay its con- 
tribution or complement of soldiers ? The contingency 
was likely enough to happen, for as the Persians were 
pushed farther and farther away from the ^^gean, the 
necessity of the league would become less and less 
apparent. Was the refusal to be accepted ? The re- 
calcitrant state would then enjoy the advantage of the 
security of the ^gean without contributing to the or- 
ganisation that made that security possible. When the 
league had been founded each city had sworn to it with 
every circumstance that could impress the permanent 
nature of the contract upon the imagination. Lumps 
of iron were sunk into the sea; the oath w^as to be 
binding until the iron floated. Athens had then some 
just grounds for coercing any state into remaining a 
member of the league. And, a more powerful argument 
still, her ambition for empire drove her in the same 
direction. And yet such coercion offended at once the 
strong instinct for state-independence which was at the 
root of all Greek political life. The first case in which 
such coercion was necessary was in 466 B.C. Then 
Naxos rebelled, for what causes and under what circum- 
stances we do not know. '' The Naxians revolted," says 
Thucydides, '* and the Athenians made war against them 
and reduced them by blockade. This was the first of the 
allied cities that was enslaved contrary to Hellenic law ; 



136 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. VI. 

the turn of the others came later." Naxos was the most 
important island of the Cyclades ; but after her revolt her 
ships were taken away from her, tribute was exacted from 
her, and she became a subject of the x\thenian rule. 

''The turn of the others came later," says Thucydides, 
but how or when we do not know. We only know 
that from 466 onwards the character of the confederacy 
rapidly changed. Thasos is the next state of whose 
rebellion we hear, and in this case it was only partially 
connected with the management of the league ; com- 
mercial jealousy was the chief cause. Of the revolt and 
subjection of the others we know hardly anything until 
we come to the year 440. Only three states then oc- 
cupied an independent station side by side with Athens, 
and these were the three great islands Lesbos, Chios, 
and Samos. And in 440 Samos itself revolted. Of the 
expedition whereby this most important island was 
reduced to subjection we have a clear account in 
Thucydides. But here the details need not detain us. 
The islanders were reduced. They had to destroy all 
their fortifications, to give hostages for future good 
behaviour, and pay a full indemnity for the cost of the 
expedition. 

How and why did all this come about ? The chief 
causes are plain enough — the desire of Athens to rule, 
the refusal of the allies to submit to rule. '' The 
Athenians," says Thucydides, " were exacting and op- 
pressive, using coercive measures towards men who were 
neither willing nor accustomed to work hard." From the 
first many states had preferred to pay money rather than 
ships and crews. The preference was natural in small 
commercial communities. But as Athens used the 
money to build ships which she manned with her own 



Ch. VI.] Civil Wars in Greece 137 

citizens, clearly a dangerous preponderance was being 
thrown into the hands of Athens. And each revolt 
increased this. The coerced state had to pay tribute 
instead of providing ships and men. So the power of 
Athens increased, and when other states rebelled they 
found that their own want of training and the great 
strength of Athens made rebellion quite hopeless. And, 
of course, the relations of the coerced states to Athens 
w^ere not what they had been before rebellion. We find 
that garrisons of Athenian soldiers w^ere placed in the 
conquered cities ; many of their law-suits were transferred 
for trial to Athens, as will be subsequently explained ; and, 
as all recalcitrant states were of course excluded from the 
synod at Delos, more and more was the management 
of the whole league thrown into the hands of Athens. 
The league rapidly disappears, the Athenian empire takes 
its place. 

This w^as clearly the case when, at a date not pre- 
cisely ascertainable, the synod at Delos ceased to exist, 
and the treasury chest was transferred from Delos to 
Athens. We are told that the transference of the fund 
was made upon the proposal of the Samians, and the 
reason alleged was the unprotected character of the island 
of Delos. Now the management of the finances of the 
league was placed in the hands of Athenian officers. 
The money was deposited in a chamber of the temple 
of the goddess Athena. The names of cities that paid 
the tribute and its amount were henceforth, year by year, 
inscribed on marble slabs, and fragments of these slabs 
are still preserved, which give us a welcome feeling of 
certainty on a few points in this dark and doubtful period. 

And thus the change from confederacy to empire was 
complete. The object for which the confederacy had 



138 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. vi. 

been formed no longer existed. Peace, nominal or 
actual, had been made with Persia. The rich tribute of 
the subject states was piled up in the Acropolis, but no 
armament had set sail against the Persians since the last 
struggle on the coast of Cyprus. In 478 Athens had 
been acclaimed as leader by the island states, and now 
those same states were bowed under her yoke and eagerly 
looked for an opportunity of revolt while they submitted 
to the garrisons and exactions of the x\thenians. The 
change deeply outraged the sentiment of Greece ; but in 
the light of universal history it can hardly be deplored. 
The new empire was stronger than the old alHance for 
offence and defence, and Hellas of the fifth century B.C. 
needed closer union rather than more independence. 
Had Athens maintained her power, and by judicious use 
of it welded her possessions into a homogeneous whole, 
she would stand justified for her usurpation before the 
bar of history. But side by side with the development 
of empire went the development of the democracy, and 
neither the spirit nor the methods of the Athenian demo- 
cracy w^ere suited to the management of an empire. 

Democratic Changes in Athens since the 
Persian War. 

The next chapter will be devoted to an examination of 
the spirit and working of the Athenian democracy ; here 
it is intended only to chronicle the chief innovations since 
the days of Clisthenes. That statesman had indeed 
laid very clearly the foundation of the Athenian demo- 
cracy, but a good deal was wanting yet to its full com- 
pletion. With the people lay even now the reality of 
power ; more so indeed than in the modern democracies 
of England, France, or America. But to complete the 



Ch. VI.] Civil Wars in Greece 139 

work it was necessary that the road to the attainment of 
office should be rendered easier, that there should be no 
offices that were not in the appointment of the people 
and controlled by them, and that administration and 
justice should be absolutely, whether directly or indirectly, 
in their hands. 

I. Solon's arrangement of the state had given the most 
prominent office of the state, the archonship, to the richest 
of the four classes into which the people were divided. 
That had since been altered. When, how, and by 
whom we are not able to say with certainty. Before 
Aristotle's work on the constitution of Athens had been 
discovered we trusted implicitly the statement of Plutarch, 
in itself probable enough, that the changes were made 
upon the motion of Aristides after the Persian war, and 
that all offices were then thrown open to all four classes. 
But this newly discovered manuscript, which, whether it 
be by Aristotle or no, is a careful examination of the con- 
stitution of Athens in a philosophic spirit, states that no 
change was i ntroduced until the year 457, and that then 
only the first three classes were made eligible to office, 
the fourth class, the poorest, and probably the largest, 
remaining in theory excluded from this office throughout 
the whole life of the Athenian democracy. This is a 
strangely undemocratic restriction, and out of harmony 
with the general character of the democracy. Yet two 
considerations will allow us to understand it. First^ 
as Aristotle himself affirms, the qualification was often 
overlooked ; and, next, the archonship was not an office 
of any importance in the government of the state. Real 
power was exercised, not by any officer at all, but by 
the people en masse, as will be explained in the next 
chapter. The archon, who had originally been the 



140 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. VI. 

real master of the state, had in process of time come 
to exercise no functions except those of ceremony and 
routine. This office demanded more leisure than a very 
poor man could give gratis, and did not really influence 
the course of government, and so the democracy accepted 
a very undemocratic limitation. 

2. The existence of the Council of the Areopagus with 
its present powers was a really more serious check upon 
the full democracy. This council consisted of men who 
had once been archons — the large majority of them, 
therefore, drawn from the richest class of citizens. All 
the members sat for life ; they were not directly appointed 
by the people nor liable to that scrutiny of their conduct 
which was the general rule in Athens after a year of office. 
Their powers it is impossible accurately to determine. 
They were the supreme court of justice in Athens, and, 
more important still, had a general power of supervision 
over the state. *'The overseer of all things and the 
guardian of the laws " the council is called in the days of 
Solon. And this general censorial power, founded on 
religion and the immemorial antiquity of their office, was 
probably the most important part of their functions. But 
the time had gone past for the exercise of functions such 
as these. They could only be used in an age of faith 
and loyalty. They were quite out of harmony with the 
prevalent scepticism of thought as well as with the 
ambition of the democracy. 

But to attack them was a very grave step. During the 
Persian war they had acquitted themselves nobly. It is 
possible that the battle of Salamis would never have been 
fought if the Areopagus had not come forward to assist 
in the transport of the homeless Athenians. Further? 
the council was the last rallying point for all con- 



Ch. VI.] Civil Wars in Greece 141 

servative sympathies. This and the Council of 500 are 
regarded by Soion as the two anchors of the Athenian 
state. The second was now no longer any check upon 
the absolute democracy, and if the Areopagus were swept 
away too those who feared the democracy would have 
nothing to trust to for defence. And it was not only 
prejudice that rallied on behalf of the attacked council. 
The danger to the venerable Council of the Areopagus 
naturally claimed the sympathy of so religious a poet as 
^schylus. In the Rumenides the goddess Athena is 
represented as founding the Council of the Areopagus 
and praising it : — 

** I give my counsel to you, citizens, 

To reverence and guard that form of state 
Which is nor lawless nor tyrannical, 
And not to cast all fear from out the city. 
***** 

This council I establish, pure from bribe, 
Reverend and keen to act, for those that sleep 
An ever-watchful sentry of the land." 

The council was attacked by Ephialtes, at this time a 
prominent democratic politician of unblemished character, 
and by Pericles, who was now coming forward as a popular 
leader. The attack called out a fierce resistance, and 
Ephialtes was assassinated — a rare incident in the political 
life of Athens. But before his death victory was assured. 
In 462 the defeat of the Areopagus was declared, and 
its powers wxre diminished. It was not destroyed, and 
remained as long as the Athenian state existed. But it 
remained only as a survival. Murder trials were indeed 
left in its hands, for murder, by reason of the pollution 
that it brought, w^as partly a religious offence and 
naturally dealt with by a partly religious tribunal. But 



1 4.2 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. vi. 

the control of the administration of the laws and the 
general supervision of the state were taken away from 
the Areopagus. Selected as the members were from the 
richest class, it is probable that they used their powers in 
the interest of a class rather than of the state. But with 
the overthrow of the Areopagus the last barrier to the 
complete triumph of the democracy was removed. 

3. By far the strangest of the institutions of the 
Athenian state, not even excepting ostracism, is the use of 
the lot for the appointment of officials ; not merely of the 
subordinate officials, but with a very few unimportant 
exceptions the whole army of officials in Athens. The 
meaning of this, the way in which it worked, its effect on 
the Athenian government, will be discussed in the next 
chapter. Here it is only necessary to mention the little 
that we know about its history. The lot had always been 
in use in the Athenian state. If that was doubtful before, 
it is no longer doubtful since the discovery of the new 
" Aristotle." The lot had, perhaps, a religious origin. 
To appoint by lot was to leave the decision to the gods. 
We do not know that there was ever a period when it 
was not used in the Athenian constitution. But its 
application varied from time to time. Solon, says 
'* Aristotle," arranged that all officers should be elected 
by lot from candidates nominated by the tribes. When 
the democracy revived after the tyranny of the Pisis- 
tratids it seems to have been dropped for awhile ; at any 
rate, as far as related to the archons. Probably it was 
felt that during the period of struggle with the Persians, 
and while the democracy still had to face a strong 
oligarchical party, leaders of assured capacity were 
necessary, and these could not be obtained by use of the 
lot. From 487 onwards the lot is regularly used in the 



Ch. VI.] Civil Wars in Greece 143 

Athenian state, and gives to the government of Athens 
some of its most striking features. 

4. It was during this period, and probably shortly 
after the overthrow of the Areopagus, that the system 
of paying citizens for political and public services was 
introduced. When all citizens, rich and poor, had to 
take a part in the management of the state, payment 
for their services was essential. Service in the army 
and navy, service on the Council of 500 or in the 
fourteen hundred magistracies of the state, were all paid 
for. And most important of all, payment was now, by 
Pericles, provided for service on the jury. Some popular 
trials there had always been since the days of Solon, but 
with the overthrow of the Areopagus the importance of 
the popular law courts had vastly increased. The law 
business of the state was indeed almost entirely brought 
before them, and in this service six thousand of the 
citizens might be employed. This system will be ex- 
plained and criticised in the next chapter. Here it is 
only necessary to say that the introduction of the payment 
of jurors belongs to the earlier period of the ascendency 
of Pericles. 

Note. — Plutarch's Life of Cimon ; Grote, Curtius, and Thucy- 
dide^5, as before. 



/ 




View over the Pnyx. 



CHAPTER VIL 



THE ATHENIAN. DEMOCRACY 



Athens was in the Greek world the main supporter of 
democratic forms of government. All states who fell 
beneath her sway and influence almost necessarily adopted 
democratic constitutions just as those that were joined 
in any way to Sparta were oligarchical in character. And 
from the standpoint of universal history the logical de- 
velopment of the democratic idea in Athens is of im- 
mense interest and had considerable influence on future 
ages. 

We have adopted the word democracy from the Greeks, 
and apply it to institutions and conditions of society which 
are to be found in France, England, and America, and 
various other parts of the world. The modern use of 

the word is a vague one. On the one hand, it is used to 

144 



Ch. VII.] The Athenian Democracy 145 

denote a certain set of opinions or emotions which look 
to the well-being of the whole community rather than of 
a privileged few, and in this sense the word is sometimes 
identical in meaning with philanthropy. On the other 
hand, it is used for a form of government that rests in the 
final analysis on the will of the people, or one in which 
the will of the people plays a very considerable part. It 
is important to notice that neither of these usages would 
have corresponded to the Greek use of the word De- 
mocracy meant a certain form of government of a very 
distinct kind. 

A Greek would not have considered our institutions 
democratic. If an Athenian of the age of Pericles had 
been made acquainted with the English constitution or 
the constitution of France or America, he would have 
been surprised to hear them called democracies. The 
English constitution would probably have seemed to 
him an oligarchy of a few hundred men (the members 
of Parliament), or perhaps, upon further examination, 
he would have said that the Cabinet was exercising a 
tyranny : a " democracy '' certainly he would not have 
called us. He would have acquiesced in Rousseau's 
paradox : " The English people thinks itself free, but 
is very much deceived. It is only free during the 
general election of members to Parliament ; as soon 
as they are elected it is enslaved." For democracy to 
the Greek meant, not government in the interests of the 
people, nor government indirectly by the people or their 
representatives ; it meant actual and direct management 
of the state by the mass of the people themselves. This 
is evident everywhere ; it becomes perhaps especially 
clear when we contrast the government of Sparta with 
that of Athens. Sparta stood as the typical oligarchy of 

10 



146 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Cn. vii. 

the Greek world. And yet in Sparta the officers (the 
ephors, etc.) were elected by the vote of all citizens. 
Only in Sparta the officers, when once elected, managed 
the state on their own initiative ; they were not the 
passive instruments of the decisions of the people ; they 
were not accountable for their conduct directly to the 
people. And therefore Sparta was not a democracy but 
an oligarchy. That the people assembled together should 
have the real control of the affairs of the state in small 
things and great — that was the first condition of a 
democracy. 

The Eeclesia. 

Let us look first at the fountain of all power, the 
general assembly of the people, as we see it in the age 
of Pericles. The Athenian year was divided into ten 
sections or prytanies, and in each of these sections the 
general assembly was necessarily summoned four times. 
Besides these regular meetings there were emergency 
meetings, which were sumimoned by special messengers 
sent out into the country districts as well as by the usual 
city-crier. All citizens above a certain age, probably 
twenty, were eligible for attendance, and measures were 
taken to secure the attendance of as many as possible. 
Lest the attractions of business or gossip in the market- 
places should prevent a good attendance, a cord was 
stretched round it, except only where the road led to 
the place where the general assembly met. All booths 
and shops were at the same time shut up. Later every 
one who attended the assembly received three obols 
(about 5^.), but in the days of Pericles patriotism was 
strong enough to dispense with the inducement. The 
assembly was held on a small hill near the agora called 
the Pnyx. The ground was artificially raised so as to 



Ch. VII.] The Athenian Democracy 147 

make a sort of theatre, and in place of the stage were 
seats for the president and other officers, and, most im- 
portant, the great stone, or Bema^ upon which the orator 
addressing the people had to take his stand. 

Every meeting began with a religious ceremonial. 
Sucking pigs were sacrificed, and the place was sprinkled 
with their blood. Incense was burnt, a solemn prayer 
was offered, and a curse was pronounced upon all who 
deceived the people for bribes. The president then, who 
was a member of the Council of 500, chosen by lot, 
brought forward the first motion on the agenda for 
the day. If the assembly desired the vote could be 
taken at once. If discussion was demanded, as was 
usually the case, the question was asked, " Who wishes to 
speak ? " Any Athenian citizen was at liberty to address 
the meeting: he mounted the Beina^ and before he spoke 
put on a wreath of myrtle. A law of Solon ordered that 
those over fifty should speak first, but the rule was often 
disregarded. Only those subjects could be discussed 
which the Council of 500 brought forward, but any 
amendment could be proposed ; and from the de- 
cision of the assembly there was no appeal whatever. 
The vote was usually taken by a show of hands ; the 
ballot was only used when the interests of some indi- 
vidual were concerned. The meeting was dissolved by 
the president when the business had been gone through 
or when the sun set. Certain signs ** from the gods " 
also led to its immediate dissolution, such as thunder, 
lightning, rain, or earthquake. If the business had not 
been got through an adjournment was made until next 
day. 

It was this large meeting of many thousands of citizens, 
often turbulent in character, and growing more so as time 



148 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. vil. 

went on, that possessed the power of guiding the des- 
tinies of the state. It does not hold the place of the 
people in the English constitution. It was not merely 
the final court of appeal. It possessed and exercised the 
power of the King, the Houses of Parliament, and the 
constituencies rolled into one. The Council of Athens 
and all the officials merely carried out the will of this 
assembly. There was nothing that approached to our 
system of party government. Neither the council nor 
the majority of the officers of the state were the choice 
of the majority ; the fact of their election by lot made that 
impossible. They were simply clerks and subordinate 
officers appointed to carry out the declared will of the 
people. But a body of several thousands of people can- 
not really exercise power by themselves. Leadership 
they must have of some sort. And, in actual working, 
the Athenian democracy, so jealous of all interference 
and of all rivals to its power, threw a great deal of power 
into the hands of a single leader. The real master of 
Athens was not the man who was elected to important 
offices, nor he who as president at any particular time 
represented the majesty of the state ; but the orator who 
from the Bema of the Pnyx could by means fair or foul 
get the ear of the people and induce them to adopt his 
measures. Such a man held no office from which he 
could be ejected, and his position and tenure of power 
were permanent compared with the annually changing 
officers of the state, the vast majority of whom were 
appointed by lot. Modern constitutional life has nothing 
that corresponds exactly to the man who, in Aristo- 
phanes' phrase, " is master of the stone on the Pnyx." 
The closest parallel, perhaps, is to be found in those 
journalists who, sometimes in England and more often 



Ch. VIL] The Athenian Democracy 149 

in France, have had more real influence than ministers 
of state. 

The people in its sovereign assembly — the Tyrant 
Demos, as it was called — was the real depositary of power 
and the real governor of the state. That is the chief 
fact of the Athenian constitution. And the Tyrant Demos 
was jealous of all rival powers. Councils and officers 
must be its passive instruments. Even the administration 
of the law must not stand in its way. All absolute rulers, 
except the very greatest, have shown the same tendency 
to check the rise of great personalities among their sub- 
ordinates, and to control the administration of law. What 
we see in the policy of Louis XIV. we may find also in 
the democracy of Athens. We will notice now the 
method of electing officers and the council, their duties, 
and the method of administering the laws. 

The Election of Officers. 

To modern observers the strangest fact about the 
Athenian constitution is the use of the lot in elections. 
To many it has seemed wholly incredible that a people 
distinguished by its acuteness of intellect should have 
appointed its officers in a way which did not allow the 
suitability of the candidates for the offices to be even 
considered. Some have therefore held that the lot 
was only maintained in deference to an old-established 
custom of religious origin, but that in practice it was 
so manipulated that choice of individuals was rendered 
possible. For this theory, however, there is no particle 
of evidence or probability. All our authorities speak of 
the choice by lot as quite genuine. Aristotle regards it 
as a particularly democratic measure. As Athens extended 
her sway over other states she forced them to adopt 



150 Greece m the Age of Pericles [Ch. vil. 

election by lot. Some offices were always distributed by 
popular vote, and these were those that most obviously 
required personal capacity, but for the vast majority of 
offices the drawing of lots decided. It may certainly be 
affirmed that 95 per cent, of the offices in the Athenian 
state were thus filled. The judges of the state, the 
police, the finance officers, the auditors of public accounts, 
the commissioners of roads, the members of the great 
Council of 500, even the clerk of the council — all were 
elected by lot. Such are the fact? ; by what considera- 
tions are they to be explained ? 

I. Citizenship at Athens did not merely mean that a 
man had a right to vote, but also that he was expected 
to serve the state in some capacity. So vast was the 
number of officials in Athens compared with the popu- 
lation, that every Athenian citizen probably held an 
official post of some sort once in his life ; very many 
must have held such a post many times. Aristotle says 
{The Atheniaft Constitution, chap, xxiv.) : " Out of the 
proceeds of the tributes and taxes and the contributions 
of the allies, more than 20,000 persons were maintained. 
There were 6000 jurymen, 1600 bowmen, 1200 knights, 
500 members of the council, 500 guards of the dock- 
yards, besides 50 guards in the city. Further, when 
they subsequently went to war, there were in addition 
2500 heavy-armed troops, 20 guardships and other 
ships which collected the tribute, with crews amount- 
ing to 2000 men selected by lot ; and besides these there 
were the persons maintained in the Prytaneum and 
orphans and gaolers, since all these were supported by 
the state." The passage is interesting as showing how 
largely the citizens of Athens lived on the resources of 
the state, and will in this connection be referred to again. 



Ch. VII.] The Athenian Democracy 151 

But here I quote it to show how large was the number 
of officers in the state. Exclusive of those employed 
on military duties, there are here mentioned over ten 
thousand officials in a state whose total number of 
citizens certainly did not amount to much more than twice 
that number. Aristotle tells us also that, except in the 
case of the Council of 500, no one might hold the same 
office a second time. The lot therefore did not determine 
who out of the whole body of citizens were to hold 
office. Office-holding was almost the normal condition 
of the Athenian citizen, and th$ lot merely determined 
which offices were to be held by which citizens. Perfect 
equality among the citizens was a great object of the 
Athenian democracy, and the very large number of offices 
and their distribution by lot secured this in a remarkable 
degree. 

2. Next the appointment by lot rather than by vote was 
an exceedingly democratic measure, because it secured 
the complete subordination of all officials to the general 
assembly (the ecclesia). Had the archons or the council 
been chosen by vote, men of conspicuous ability or 
popularity would have been elected. A Council of 500 
of the most prominent citizens of Athens, even if they 
sat only for a year, would have drawn men's eyes to them- 
selves away from the general assembly. They might in 
time have eclipsed the power of the assembly, just as 
the Senate eclipsed the comitia in Rome. But the 
central object of the Athenian constitution was to give 
to the general assembly of the people the whole control 
of the state; all other institutions must be distinctly 
subsidiary, and confine themselves to carrying out the 
wishes of the assembly. The adoption of the lot showed 
a perfectly just instinct in the democracy. It necessarily 



152 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. Vll. 

condemned all officers to the desired obscurity, and left 
the assembly supreme. 

The duties of Athenian officials were usually such as 
could be easily performed by a man of average intelli- 
gence. Yet none the less the fact that the lot could 
work shows clearly how high was the average of ability 
in the Athenian state. No modern state could adopt 
such a system with such a measure of success. We 
must remember, of course, that all drudgery was per- 
formed by slaves, and that citizens had leisure and 
opportunities for an education, not of the modern kind 
indeed, but one which w^as more efficacious in sharpening 
the faculties. But, when all is said, it remains a most 
surprising fact that the Athenian state could take citizens 
from the street quite at random, appoint them to judicial 
and financial work, and suffer from this system so httle 
as she did. We must add, however, that there were 
safeguards against the occupation of office by wholly un- 
worthy and incapable men. The first of these safeguards 
was the docimasia, or examination of the candidate after 
the lot had fallen upon him, but before he entered on 
the duties of his post. This examination took place 
before one of the juries of which I shall speak presently. 
Doubtless it was usually purely formal, but it gave an 
opportunity for the rejection of an obviously unfit per- 
son. Aristotle gives us the methods of examination in 
the case of the archons. He seems to imply that the 
\ form adopted in their case was exceptional ; but it is 
worth quoting. '* When they are examined they are 
asked first, ' Who is your father, and of what deme ? 
Who is your father's father ? Who is your mother ? 
X Who is your mother's father, and of what deme ? ' Then 
\ the candidate is asked ... if he possesses a family tomb, 



Ch. VII.] The Athenian Democracy 153 

and where ; then if he treats his parents well, and pays 
his taxes, and has served on the required military ex- 
peditions. . . . The examiner . . . next asks, ^ Does any 
one wish to make an accusation against this man ? ' . . . 
If no one wishes to make an accusation, he proceeds 
at once fo the vote. . . . When the examination has been 
thus concluded, they proceed to the stone on which are 
the pieces of the victims. . . . On this stone the archons 
stand, and swear to exercise their office uprightly and 
according to the law^s, and not to receive presents in 
respect of the performance of their duties. . . . After 
this they enter upon their office." A further safeguard 
was the examination that each official had to undergo 
when he laid down his office. Incapacity and dishonesty 
could then be punished, and the knowledge that this 
ordeal had to be faced would prevent quite unworthy 
candidates from allowing themselves to be nominated 
for office. 

The conclusion of the whole matter is that the use 
of the lot resulted in the complete subordination of all 
officials to the ecclesia, and it seems probable that it was 
consciously adopted with a view to that result. 

The Council of Five Hundred. 

After the general assembly the most important insti- 
tution of the Athenian state was the Council of 500, the 
Boule ; for the Areopagus, since it had been shorn of its 
power by Pericles, may be omitted from the survey. 
The Council of 500 was the permanent government of 
Athens. The general assembly only met occasionally, 
but the Council of 500 was always sitting. It had to 
decide in any case of emergency ; it was the body to 
whom foreign powers in the first instance addressed 



154 Greece in the Age of Pericles -[Ch. vii. 

themselves. If we judged by the history of other great 
municipal councils, whether in Rome or mediaeval Italy 
or Germany, we should expect this council to become 
the real ruler of the state. It is the peculiarity of the 
Athenian constitution that it did not : it remained the 
strictly subordinate and almost passive instrument of the 
general assembly. 

This result was due to the fact that its members were 
elected by lot and sat only for a year. The most in- 
fluential politicians of Athens were not to be found 
there, or at any rate did not exercise their influence 
through that channel. The council had no separate 
esprit de corps ; it had almost no existence apart from the 
general assembly of which it was the obedient organ. It 
certainly had no separate policy ; for it was appointed to 
attend to the routine management of the state, and to 
execute, without criticising, the policy that had been 
adopted by the ecclesia. No Athenian could feel jealous 
of it. It did not possess sufficient power to provoke 
such a passion, and besides every Athenian citizen would 
probably some time possess a seat in it. For, as no 
one under thirty years of age was eligible, and as no man 
could be elected more than twice, it is certain that most 
of the citizens of Athens must have passed through it. 
We will look first at its organisation and then at its duties. 

The Council of 500 was, since the days of Clisthenes, 
composed of fifty members from each tribe, chosen by lot. 
As the council was the standing government of Athens, 
it was necessary that some members should be in attend- 
ance every day. This duty was allotted to each tribe in 
turn, whose fifty representatives (called for the time 
Prytanes or Presidents) were bound to attend for a 
tenth part of the year. During this period they were fed 



Ch. VII.] The Athenian Democracy 155 

at the public expense, and were lodged in the Tholus, 
which we may almost regard as the Athenian town- 
hall. A meeting of the assembly was held every day, 
but the attendance of all except the presiding tribe was 
optional. Such a body must of course have a chairman 
or president, and the method of choosing the president is 
especially to be noted as eminently characteristic of the 
passion for equality that runs through Athenian politics. 
The chairman was chosen by lot from the presiding tribe. 
He held the office for a night and a day, during which 
time he held the keys of the sanctuaries in which the 
treasure and public records of the state were preserved, 
and the public seal. But no one might hold the office 
for longer than a day and a night, and no one might be 
re-elected. For that brief period he was the official 
representative of the Athenian state. He received 
ambassadors and headed all processions, and to this 
position of transient splendour the use of the lot allowed 
every Athenian citizen to aspire with good chances of 
attainment. It is as though every citizen of London had 
good reason to believe that he would for one day of his 
life be Lord Mayor. 

The duties of this council were to carry out the 
business of the state upon the lines laid down by the 
general assembly. First, they had to prepare all 
business that was to be transacted by the general 
assembly. They had to determine its order, and to see 
that the proper order was preserved. They drew up in 
legal form any resolutions that were to be submitted to 
the people. They appointed the chairman of the as- 
sembly for the day ; and it is characteristic of the spirit 
of Athenian politics that, in the time of Aristotle, the 
chairman of the council for the day might not be chair- 



156 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. vii. 

man also of the general assembly. These probouleutic 
or preparatory functions of the senate did not in any 
way interfere with the independence of the general 
assembly ; with it and with it alone lay the determina- 
tion of all policy. Next, the council had very extensive 
administrative duties. Aristotle mentions the chief of 
these. They conducted the earlier stages of the scrutiny 
(docimasia) that all candidates for office had to undergo. 
They superintended the building of ships and the manage- 
ment of the dockyards generally. All public buildings 
were inspected by them, and they decided on the plans 
for new ones. They examined all the horses belonging 
to the state. " If the council," says Aristotle, " finds 
one which, though sound, will not go well, it mulcts it 
of some of its corn ; w^hile those which cannot go or 
which will not obey the rein it brands with a wheel 
on the jaw, and the horse so marked is disqualified for 
service." The council also in Aristotle's time managed 
a system of poor relief, whereby two obols a day (3^.) 
were granted to persons possessing less than three minas 
(;^i5) who were too crippled to do any work. And 
besides all this "the council, speaking broadly, co- 
operates in most of the duties of all the other magis- 
trates." And, lastly, the conduct of negotiations with 
foreign powers and the reception of ambassadors were 
in the hands of the council. But here, as everywhere, 
it was merely the subordinate committee of the general 
assembly. Foreign and domestic policy were equally 
the exclusive province of the sovereign Demos. 

The Officials of the State. 

The Council of 500 was the intermediary between the 
Assembly of the People and the officials of the state. It 



Ch. VII.] The Athenian Democracy 157 

superintended and co-operated with all these officials, 
but it did not, in itself, actually carry out any executive 
duties. Let us consider what these officials were. 

The use of the lot was very general, but the Athenians 
recognised that there were some functions which lot- 
appointed officers could not adequately fulfil. And es- 
pecially success in war depended so much upon personal 
ability in the leaders, and the consequences of failure 
were so great, that in military and naval appointments the 
lot was never used. The ten generals of the state were 
elected by show of hands in the general assembly, and in 
the same way their various duties were appointed them. 
This man is to command the heavy infantry, and take 
charge of all military expeditions ; that man is to take 
command of the home forces ; two others are to look 
after the harbour of the Piraeus. Popular election 
seems to us, and indeed has been proved by history, to 
be a wholly inadequate method of distributing military 
appointments ; but at any rate it was better than the lot. 
Some of the lower officers also were appointed by vote, 
and the lowest of all were nominated by the higher ones. 
In military affairs the lot was not used at all. One or two 
other officials, whose duties were specially important, 
were also elected by vote. We may note especially the 
Commissioners of Springs. The supply of water for 
Athens was too difficult and too important to be left to 
an officer elected by lot. 

We turn next to the general management and ad- 
ministration of the state, and we find that this was 
completely in the hands of officials appointed by the 
drawing of lots. The vast number of these officials 
has already been alluded to. It must also be again 
repeated that most of the offices could not be held a 



158 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. vil. 

second time. The system of election by lot as practised 
at Athens assumes that all Athenian citizens are capable 
of holding office, and ought often to do so. And by the 
multiplication of the officials the duties of office were 
so far cut down as to be really within the power of any 
citizen of fair capacity and industry. 

Let us notice what duties of general administration 
were in the hands of lot-appointed officials. And on this 
subject Aristotle's treatise on the Athenian constitution 
will be our best authority. He enumerates commis- 
sioners for the repair of the temples ; city commissioners 
whose duty it was to see to the drainage of Athens ; 
market commissioners ''to see that all articles offered 
for sale were pure and unadulterated " ; commissioners of 
weights and measures ; commissioners authorised to see 
that corn was offered for sale at reasonable prices, and 
that bakers " sold their loaves at a price proportionate 
to the cost of the wheat " ; the keepers of the state gaol 
(a curious appointment for the lot), and other judicial 
officers shortly to be mentioned. At the head of the 
state, as its nominal representatives, were the nine 
Archons, elected by lot from the richer classes; for their 
office, like that of Mayor in an English municipality, 
involved a good deal of expense. At the head of the 
Archons were the Archon who gave his name to the 
year, and, amongst a great many other duties, protected 
the rights of widows and orphans ; the King Archon, 
the official head of the religion of Athens ; the Archon 
Polemarchus or General, who had once been a leader of 
the troops, but now was the chief protector of aliens 
resident in the state. And after these three came the 
six others, with functions mainly judicial. We shall 
glance at their duties again shortly. Enough for the 



Ch. VII.] The Athenian Democracy 159 

present that we see a vast swarm of officials settling on 
Athens, all paid by the state and nearly all elected 
by lot. Amidst so ^reat a crowd no one was very 
prominent. The ten generals were doubtless the most 
powerful officers in the state, but they never attained to 
any separate authority. They held office for one year 
only ; and at any time during the year it was possible 
to depose them without any accusation being presented 
against them. The military administration of the state 
without question suffered from such arrangements: but 
the military power was kept in strict subordination to 
the civic, and the Demos reigned supreme without let 
or hindrance. 

Financial Administration. 

There remain yet two important state departments 
to be considered — the management of finance and the 
administration of justice. Here the main features of the 
Athenian constitution repeat themselves. The initiative 
lay with the general assembly, the superintendence 
with the Council of 500, the execution with a large 
number of magistrates elected by lot. Month by 
month the council laid before the general assembly a 
statement of the position of the finances. Any new 
financial measures would be proposed from the Bema 
on the Pnyx by some popular orator, and would, after 
discussion, be ratified or rejected by the people. If it 
were ratified and turned out badly, the proposer was 
himself responsible, and could be punished by a special 
legal process. It was from the popular political leader 
for the time being, Pericles or Themistocles, Thucydides 
or Cimon, that all fresh financial proposals would come. 
But the carrying out of them depended upon officers 



i6o Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. vil. 

elected by lot from the mass of citizens, acting only 
under the superintendence of the council, itself elected 
by lot. Our chancellor of the exchequer finds his 
parallel in the public orator ; but all the permanent 
financial officials, all the auditors and collectors of taxes, 
were represented in the Athenian state by men of no 
special training, who owed their appointment for a year 
to the undiscriminating choice of the lot. 

The main sources of revenue of the Athenian state in 
the time of Pericles were the tribute of the allies, the 
taxes which were farmed out for collection, and public 
lands and mines. Direct taxation on income and 
property was not a regular source of revenue, but was 
resorted to in emergencies. The tribute of the allies 
was collected by officers called Hellenotamiai, probably 
elected by lot. The farming of taxes and the renting of 
public lands and mines were carried out by a board of 
ten officers called Poletse, elected by lot. They pre- 
sented to the council a record of such sales and of the 
dates on which payments were due from the buyers. 
All these payments were made to ten Receivers-General 
(Apodectse), ten officers elected by lot, one from each 
tribe. They struck off the payments from the lists, noted 
any failures to pay, and reported them to the council, 
which had the power of imprisoning the defaulters until 
such payment was made. The day after the money 
was received it was portioned out among the various 
officials who presided over the spending departments. 
As a check upon the system there was a board of 
auditors or accountants (Logistae). In the time of Aris- 
totle they were elected by lot from the members of the 
council. As the council was itself elected by lot, this 
limitation was no sort of guarantee for even moderate 



Ch. VII.] The Athenian Democracy i6i 

ability. There is no stranger feature in the administrative 
system of Athens than the relegation of duties, that are 
now regarded as wanting such special capacity, to lot- 
elected officers. Ten times in the year these magis- 
trates audited the accounts of all financial officials ; with 
special attention, doubtless, at the end of the financial 
year, when the new officials entered on their duties. 

Such, omitting many details, were the main features of 
the Athenian financial system. What guarantees were 
there for honesty and efficiency } For honesty there 
was an excellent guarantee. Between officials elected 
by lot, holding office only for a year, and always asso- 
ciated with many colleagues, the collusion necessary to 
fraud was almost impossible. And besides this, all 
officials had to face an examination of their conduct 
before they laid down their office. It was open to 
any one to bring an accusation on such an occasion, and 
the case would then be tried before the ordinary judicial 
tribunals. And although we may not rate the standard 
of honesty very highly in Athens, malversation of public 
funds was not one of the evils from which the state 
suffered. The efficiency of the system is much more 
doubtful. Athens must have paid dearly for her worship 
of the average man, her suspicion of special ability. 
In the Periclean age the income of the state was so 
great, the standard of life so simple, that no difficulty 
was experienced in meeting the requirements of the 
state. But later, when misfortunes had fallen on 
Athens and the resources of the state were hardly equal 
to the requirements of her ambition, the lack of better 
initiative than the general assembly could supply, and 
of more personal control than was possible with the 
army of lot-elected officials, was so keenly felt that an 

11 



1 62 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. vil. 

alteration was made in the system, and a number of 
superintendents of finance elected by vote. 

The Administration of the Law^. 

We have seen how the democracy in the general 
assembly (ecclesia) was the one supreme authority in 
the Athenian state, so far as regards internal adminis- 
tration and foreign affairs. We shall now see that the 
administration of the law was no check upon the 
absolute power of the Demos. All absolute rulers, 
from the Caesars to Louis XIV., have felt that in the 
administration of the law a limit might be placed to 
their powers, and have tried therefore to get the adminis- 
tration into their own hands. The same tendency can be 
traced in the history of the ^' Tyrant Demos " of Athens. 
The Areopagus had exercised a jurisdiction uncontrolled 
by any popular force, and for that reason had been 
shorn of nearly the whole of its judicial powers. And 
now the people were as supreme in the judicial as in the 
financial matters. To understand this we must look at 
the judicial authorities of Athens in the time of Pericles. 

In petty cases lot-elected officers could decide without 
appeal to a jury. Thirty men chosen by lot from the 
body of the people made the circuit of the whole of 
Attica, and all cases " where the damages claimed did 
not exceed ten drachmae '' (about eight shillings) were 
brought before them for a final decision. In more 
important cases also it was possible to get the matter 
settled without going before the popular jury. For there 
was a class of arbitrators (Diaetetae) before whom civil 
cases of importance could be brought in the first instance. 
It was their duty to try to bring the parties to an 
agreement. If that proved impossible, they gave a 



Ch. VII.] The Athenian Democracy 163 

decision upon the point at issue. But either party could 
appeal from this decision to the popular jury. These 
arbitrators were the nearest approach to judges that we 
find in the Athenian state, and it is therefore well to 
note how they were appointed. They were selected by 
lot from citizens sixty years of age. And not only was 
the arbitrator chosen by lot, but the man so chosen was 
forced to serve. "The law enacts," says Aristotle, " that 
any one who does not serve as arbitrator when he has 
arrived at the necessary age shall lose his civic rights^ 
unless he happens to be holding some other office 
during that year or to be out of the country." The 
disregard and indeed dislike of special talent and training 
in the servants of the state that is characteristic of the 
Athenian democracy could hardly be pushed further. 
But the great popular juries are of infinitely more 
importance than travelling justices or arbitrators, and 
these we will examine at once. 

First for the constitution of the jury. Democratic 
feeling doubtless demanded that in judicial matters as 
everywhere else the will of the people should be 
supreme. And trials by the popular assembly had at 
one time existed ; but, as trials multiplied in number 
with the increasing complexity of Athenian society, 
constant appeal to the popular assembly would ob- 
viously be nearly impossible. The problem was how to 
secure popular control of trials at law without having 
recourse to the general assembly. The solution was 
found in the jury system. At the beginning of each 
year six thousand Athenian citizens over thirty years 
of age— probably more than a quarter of the whole — 
were elected by lot. These six thousand were, again by 
lot, divided into ten sections of five hundred each, thus 



164 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. VII. 

leaving one thousand who belonged to no section, and 
these thousand were held over as a reserve. Each man 
knew to which of the ten sections he belonged, and 
the section was known by a letter of the alphabet. 

Let us look now at the procedure whereby the case 
was brought before and decided by one of these juries. 
The first application was made to one of the nine 
archons. He was a lot-elected officer and had no 
jurisdiction whatever. His duties w^ere purely formal. 
Defendant and plaintiff appeared before him and explained 
the nature of the case. He made no comment and gave 
no opinion. He only put down the case among those 
that were to come up for trial, and decided on what 
day the trial was to take place. And when the day 
arrived he had a further duty. He decided by the 
drawing of lots which of the ten juries was to sit upon 
the case. When this had been decided, proclama- 
tion was made that such and such a jury was summoned 
to such and such a court to try a certain case. Those 
who attended received at the close of the day two obols 
(about 3^.) for the performance of their duties. But 
no one was obliged to attend. The number sitting on 
different cases varied, therefore, very considerably. If 
enough jurors did not put in an appearance, another 
jury would be called upon. For important cases 
sometimes two or more juries were summoned. 

When the trial began the jury thus constituted was 
supreme and its judgment was final. No judge pre- 
sided over the trial to direct the decision and check 
the statements of counsel. There was indeed a presiding 
officer, but he was merely the submissive clerk of the 
jury, in no sense their superior or guide. The jurymen 
listened to the pleadings on both sides, heard the 



Ch. VII.] The Athenian Democracy 165 

evidence, which was prepared in writing beforehand 
and submitted to no cross-examination, decided on 
matters of fact and questions of law, and finally, without 
any possibility of appeal, gave the verdict, affixed the 
punishment, or assessed the damages. On no question 
was the unanimity of the jury necessary : a bare majority 
decided. 

If we compare an Athenian trial with an English one, 
the difference is very marked. The whole character of 
the two ceremonials is completely different. In Athens 
everything was in the hands of men without special 
training. The judges of to-day were ordinary citizens 
to-morrow. The pleaders were not men of special legal 
knowledge. Plaintiff and defendant spoke in person, 
and if they delivered speeches prepared for them, they 
had been prepared, not by a professional lawyer, but by 
a skilled rhetorician. The whole proceedings were 
conducted by amateurs. In England the professed 
object of all the minute details is to eliminate causes 
of error and to make truth more certain of attainment. 
In Athens one may say that the giving of a true verdict 
was by no means the one great end of a trial at law ; but 
rather the supremacy of the people and the procuring 
of obedience to their decision. The speaker desired 
not to prove but to persuade, and as there was no 
limitation put upon him as to the facts he brought 
forward or the way in which he treated them, the 
forensic speakers of Athens often diverged wide of the 
point at issue and appealed directly to the emotions and 
passions of the jury. The proceedings were interrupted 
by cries of approval or the contrary. The defendant 
often introduced his wife and children into the court, 
that their tears might supplement his arguments. The 



i66 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. vii. 

tone and spirit of the proceedings were rather those of a 
public meeting than of an English trial at law. 

And'how did the Athenian system work? In many 
ways well. It prevented bribery, and it procured 
obedience to the decisions given. For bribery was 
almost impossible where the jury might consist of five 
hundred men, whose names could not be known until 
the day of the trial. And as Greek officials were not 
unusually afflicted with "the itching palm," this is 
very great praise for the Athenian system. And the 
decision of the jury was accepted. P^or the jury, being 
a large committee of the sovereign people taken at 
haphazard, represented the sovereign people and ex- 
cluded the possibility of a decision in the interests of 
an individual or a clique. The whole strength of the 
democracy was behind the decisions of the jury, and 
they were therefore accepted with a readiness that would 
not in Athens have been given to any single official or 
any professional class. The Athenians claimed for 
themselves with justice that they were a law-abiding 
people ; and it is probably a greater social advantage that 
verdicts should be accepted without question than that 
they should be invariably accurate. But it is very 
evident that with such a procedure no great system of 
law could grow up. The experience of centuries has 
proved how necessary in a complex society is special 
legal knowledge and a fully developed system of law. 
But in Athens nothing of the sort could arise. The idea 
of law came into the world not from Greece but from 
Rome. 

The Athenian Method of making Laws. 

In the ancient world laws were neither so numerous 
nor so important as with us. In England the chief 



Ch. VII.] The Athenian Democracy 167 

work of Parliament is the making of laws for the people. 
But a great deal of the work of Parliament in framing 
laws would be accomplished by the general assembly 
at Athens in the shape of directions given to the 
assembly and officers for the general administration of 
the state. And what there was of Athenian law was 
not very technical. "Athenian law never got beyond 
the rudimentary state : it remained merely a list of rules 
or precepts for conduct, with apparently little attempt at 
scientific arrangement." 

At the beginning of every year all the laws of Athens 
were read over before the general assembly. It was 
then open to any citizen to propose the abolition of 
some existing law or the adoption of a new one. At a 
later period of the year a certain number, which varied 
but was always large, was chosen by lot from the six 
thousand jurymen who were serving for the year. At 
the same time pubHc advocates were named to defend 
the laws that were attacked. The question of the 
adoption or rejection of the new proposal was then 
brought before the selected section of jurymen (called 
for this special purpose Nomothetae, or law-makers), and 
the matter was argued out exactly as if it were an 
ordinary trial at law. If a majority of the Nomothetae 
voted in favour of the proposal, it became law at once ; 
if against it, it was rejected. The object of the whole 
procedure is to keep the power of making laws in the 
hands of the people. The general assembly is too 
large a body to devote the necessary attention to the 
proposal. From the general assembly a large committee 
is taken at haphazard. No attempt is made to procure 
specially able men : they must represent merely the 
general character and ability of the whole people. And 



1 68 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. vii. 

for the time they are clothed with the authority of the 
sovereign people, and in its name make laws. 

We have glanced rapidly at the chief features of the 
Athenian democracy. We must now attempt the ex- 
tremely difficult task of estimating its success. There 
are two points of view from which all governments may 
be judged — the external and the internal. That is, we 
may ask, firstly, how far they succeeded in achieving 
the object at which they aimed ; and, secondly, what 
their effect was upon the citizens themselves. Both 
points must be borne in mind in estimating the Athenian 
democracy. We w^ll look first at the judgment of con- 
temporaries, and then consider the question in the light 
of subsequent history. 

The Funeral Oration of Pericles. 

Thucydides, in the thirty-fifth chapter of the second 
book, puts into the mouth of Pericles an eulogy of the 
Athenian democracy. We need not here inquire how 
far it represents the actual statements of Pericles and 
how far those of the historian. It is, at any rate, a 
notable contemporary judgment of the Athenian state. 
It is there claimed that the democracy exhibits greatness 
and nobility of character, and at the same time has 
achieved the greatest distinction in war — that Athens is 
both admirable and successful. The whole speech is of 
such singular beauty and possesses such unity as a work 
of art that it is hard to make extracts from it. But some 
of the most striking passages must be quoted. 

Of the internal condition of the state Pericles says : 
'* There is no exclusiveness in our public life, and in our 
private intercourse we are not suspicious of one another, 
nor angry with our neighbour if he does what he likes ; 



Ch. VII.] ^The Athenian Democracy 169 

we do not put on sour looks at him which, though harm- 
less, are not pleasant. While we are thus unconstrained 
in our private intercourse, a spirit of reverence pervades 
our public acts ; we are prevented from doing wrong by 
respect for authority and for the laws, having an especial 
regard to those which are ordained for the protection of 
the injured as well as to those unwritten laws which bring 
upon the transgressor of them the reprobation of the 
general sentiment. And we have not forgotten to pro- 
vide for our weary spirits many relaxations from toil ; we 
have regular games and sacrifices throughout the year ; 
at home the style of our life is refined \ and the delight 
that we daily feel in all these things helps to banish 
melancholy. . . . Our city is equally admirable in peace 
and in war. For we are lovers of the beautiful, yet 
simple in our tastes, and we cultivate the mind without 
loss of manliness. Wealth we employ, not for talk and 
ostentation, but when there is real use for it. To avow 
poverty with us is no disgrace ; the true disgrace is in 
doing nothing to avoid it. An Athenian citizen does not 
neglect the state because he takes care of his own house- 
hold, and even those of us who are engaged in business 
have a very fair idea of politics. ... To sum up : I 
say that Athens is the school of Hellas, and that the 
individual Athenian in his own person seems to have 
the power of adapting himself to the most varied forms 
of action with the utmost versatility and grace." 

Pericles further claims for Athens that their refine- 
ment has not enervated them for action ; that with less 
strenuous preparation they are as successful in war as the 
Spartans. " Our military training is in many respects 
superior to that of our adversaries. Our city is thrown 
open to the world, and we never expel a foreigner or 



lyo Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. vil. 

prevent him from seeing or learning anything of which the 
secret, if revealed to an enemy, might profit him. We 
rely not upon management or trickery, but upon our 
own hearts and hands. And in the matter of education, 
whereas they from early youth are always undergoing 
laborious exercises which are to make them brave, we live 
at ease and yet are equally ready to face the perils which 
they face." For confirmation of his statements he points 
to the Athenian Empire. ^' In the hour of trial Athens 
alone among her contemporaries is superior to the report 
of her. No enemy who comes against her is indignant at 
the reverses which he sustains at the hands of such a city ; 
no subject complains that his masters are unworthy of 
him. And we shall assuredly not be without witnesses ; 
there are mighty monuments of our power which will 
make us the wonder of this and of succeeding ages. . . . 
For we have compelled every land and every sea to open 
a path for our valour, and have everywhere planted eternal 
memorials of our friendship and of our enmity.'^ No 
more splendid panegyric has ever been pronounced on a 
state, and the verdict of history must assuredly be that 
at the time when it was pronounced it was, in the main, 
deserved. 

Later Contemporary Criticism of the Athenian 
Democracy. 

The age of Pericles marks the highest point in the 
character and the achievement of the Athenian demo- 
cracy. The position w^as indeed exceptional. The great 
personal ascendency of Pericles gave to the government 
of Athens a cohesion and concentration that was not 
guaranteed by its institutions. The democratic form 
of government was, moreover, of recent date, and we 



Ch. VII.] The Athenian Democracy 171 

must look to a later period for an example of its normal 
working. It will be well therefore to put side by side 
with the eulogy of Pericles a hostile criticism from a later 
age. And such a criticism we find in the Republic of 
Plato. Athens is not indeed mentioned by name, but it 
is evident that Athens is taken as the typical democracy 
when democratic institutions are criticised. Plato is in 
some respects an unfair witness, for it was an Athenian 
jury that had condemned his master, Socrates, to death, 
and it is clear that he had not forgotten or forgiven that 
outrage ; but, with that reservation, the criticism is full 
of interest and instruction for us. Plato demands in a 
state the same strenuousness of character, the same 
fixity of purpose, as in an individual. He finds that 
democracy is the direct negation of any discipline in life. 
The only wisdom of a democratic politician is to flatter 
the people, and the democratic regime, if prolonged, leads 
down into complete moral anarchy. A few extracts will 
give the general tone of the criticism, which is often 
written in a spirit of bantering irony. 

Here is an interesting picture of an assembly of the 
people : ^* When they meet together and the world sits 
down at an assembly or in a court of law ... or in any 
other popular resort, and there is a great uproar, and they 
praise some things which are being said and done, or 
blame other things, equally exaggerating both, shouting 
and clapping their hands, and the echo of the rocks 
and the place in which they are assembled redoubles the 
sound of the praise or blame — at such a time will not a 
young man's heart, as they say, leap within him^ ? Will 
any private training enable him to stand firm against the 
overwhelming flood of popular opinion ? or will he be 
carried away by the stream? Will he not have the 



172 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. vii 

notions of good or evil which the public in general have ? 
He will do as they do, and as they are, such will he be." 

And here is Plato's picture of the demagogue : '* I 
might compare him to a man who should study the 
tempers and desires of a mighty strong beast who is fed 
by him : he would learn how to approach and handle him, 
also at what times and from what causes he is dan- 
gerous or the reverse, and what is the meaning of his 
several cries, and by what sounds when another utters 
them he is soothed or infuriated ; and you may suppose 
further that when, by continually attending on him, he 
has become perfect in all this, he calls his knowledge 
wisdom, and makes of it a system or art, which he pro- 
ceeds to teach, although he has no real notion of what 
he means by the principles or passions of which he is 
speaking, but calls this honourable and that dishonour- 
able, or good or evil, or just or unjust, all in accordance 
with the tastes and tempers of the great brute." 

Later Plato describes '' the democratic man," the 
typical product of a democracy. *' He does not receive 
any true word of advice ; if any one says to him that 
some pleasures are the satisfactions of good and noble 
desires and others of evil desires, and that he ought to 
use and honour some and chastise and master the 
others — whenever this is repeated to him he shakes his 
head, and says that they are all alike and that one is as 
good as another. . . . He lives from day to day indulging 
the appetite of the hour ; and sometimes he is lapped 
in drink and strains of the flute ; then he becomes a 
water-drinker and tries to get thin ; then he takes a 
turn at gymnastics ; sometimes idling and neglecting 
everything, then once more living the life of a philoso- 
pher; often he is busy with politics, and starts to his 



Ch. VII.] The Athenian Democracy 173 

feet and says and does whatever comes into his head; 
and if he is emulous of any one who is a warrior, off he 
is in that direction ; or of men of business, once more in 
that. His h'fe has neither law nor order ; and this dis- 
tracted existence he terms joy and bliss and freedom : 
and so he goes on." 

The society corresponding to such an individual is de- 
scribed as follows : " In such a state of society the master 
fears and flatters his scholars, and the scholars despise 
their masters and tutors ; young and old are all alike : 
and the young man is on a level with the old, and is 
ready to compete with him in word or deed ; and old 
men condescend to the young and are full of gaiety ; 
they are loath to be thought morose and authoritative, 
and therefore they adopt the manners of the young. . . . 
And I must add that no one who does not know would 
believe how much greater is the liberty which the animals 
who are under the dominion of man have in a democracy 
than in any other state ; for truly the dog, as the proverb 
says, is as good as his master, and the horses and asses 
have a way of marching along with all the rights and 
dignities of freemen, and they will run at any one who 
comes in their way if he does not leave the road clear 
for them ; and all things are just ready to burst with 
Hberty. . . . And above all, and as the result of all, see 
how sensitive the citizens become ; they chafe impatiently 
at the least touch of authority, and at length they cease 
to care even for the laws, written or unwritten ; they will 
have no one over them." 

A Criticism of the Athenian Democracy. 

It seems necessary in conclusion, however difficult 
the task, to attempt some criticism of the Athenian 



1^4 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. vil. 

democracy as a whole. We will consider, firstly, what 
its influence was upon the intellectual development of 
Athens ; and, secondly, how it worked as an instrument 
of administration and government. 

I. That the true task of Greece was intellectual and 
artistic will be denied by no one. And clearly in this 
task Athens had a greater share than all the rest of 
the Greek states put together. What then was the con- 
nection between this ever-memorable achievement and 
the democratic government of Athens ? The connection 
is surely not wholly an accidental one : the services of 
the democracy to art and thought are not small. For 
the government of Athens allowed men far greater liberty 
of thought and speech than was to be found elsewhere 
in Greece ; and freedom of thought is the first, though 
not the only, condition of intellectual development. If 
Socrates was put to death and Anaxagoras driven from 
Athens for opposition to popular opinions and beliefs, 
they would not have been able to develop their opinions 
so long with impunity elsewhere in Greece. Socrates 
indeed is represented by Plato as refusing to accept exile 
in place of death on this very ground, that no other state 
would permit him to carry on his philosophical discus- 
sions with the freedom that he had found in Athens. 
And if these considerations apply less to art than to 
thought, the poets and artists of Athens still owed much 
to the free atmosphere of the Athenian democracy. 
Traditional rules were more easily neglected, new develop- 
ments were more readily welcomed. And the experi- 
ence of the general assembly and the jury courts 
quickened in a remarkable fashion the intellect of the 
Athenian citizens ; and if, in the end, the moral effects of 
the system were rather evil than good, it gave for a time 



Ch. VII.] The Athenian Democracy 175 

to the poets of Athens an audience of unequalled powers 
of discrimination and appreciation. But much beyond 
this it is impossible to go. It is extremely difficult, 
perhaps impossible, to state the conditions under which 
art and thought best flourish. Their vigour or decay 
does not, at any rate, depend solely or mainly on forms 
of government. They have flourished and they have 
languished under every kind of ruler. And Athens' 
greatest intellectual glory falls, not in the period of 
unbridled democracy that followed the death of Pericles, 
but while the people, not yet fully conscious of their own 
power, recognised authorities beyond their own will, 
while the old religious faiths were strong, while the 
Areopagus was regarded with veneration, or Pericles 
ruled with an authority greater than that of a king. If 
the democracy is to take all the credit for the early 
splendour of Athenian art and thought, it must also take 
all the blame of their later decay. In truth it was only 
a subordinate cause of both the one and the other. 

Plato implies that the democracy has produced deteri- 
oration in the Athenian character. With the occupation 
of supreme power has come the loss of the sentiments of 
loyalty and obedience. The will of the people, and in 
many matters the will of the individual, is the sole 
criterion of right or wrong. And other thinkers of 
great power make in effect the same criticism : Aristo- 
phanes repeats it, and Xenophon and Aristotle. It is 
indisputable that moral deterioration had come on Athens 
by the middle of the fourth century. The fellow- 
citizens of Demosthenes have not the tenacity and the 
vigour that characterise the Athenians of the Periclean 
age. There is danger of exaggeration ; yet that virtue 
had gone out of the Athenian people is without question. 



176 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. vil. 

But while the influence of the democracy has to bear its 
share of the blame for the deterioration, it is surely not 
the sole nor the most important cause. The institutions 
that most influence the character were growing weak. 
Religion was losing its hold ; the family, always weak, 
showed no signs of growing stronger. In Athens then the 
influence of the government upon the character of the 
citizens was far greater than it was in Rome and than it 
is in most modern states. Self-complacency and vanity 
were the chief vices that the Athenian character exhibited 
towards the end of the era of independence, and these 
vices must have been largely fostered by the flattery of 
demagogues and the undisputed tenure of supreme power. 
Yet to the last the Athenian democracy exhibits many 
fine characteristics — intellectual alertness, humanity, 
patriotism. 

2. But after all our judgment on the, Athenian 
democracy will depend mainly on the way in which it 
performed the task of government. Did it secure order 
and progress ? Did it accomplish the ends, military or 
administrative, that the Athenian people set before them- 
selves ? If we base our judgment entirely upon a com- 
parison of Athens with other contemporary states of 
Greece, our verdict must be favourable. For order and 
quiet government at home Athens is really far ahead of 
Sparta and Thebes, Argos and Corinth. And though 
she was crushed in war by Sparta, and though her empire, 
after a temporary splendour, crumbled to pieces, yet 
in the task of conquest and administration democratic 
Athens does better than oligarchic Sparta did after her 
rival's overthrow. But if we take a higher standpoint — if 
we judge the Athenian democracy, not merely in com- 
parison to contemporary governments, but in the light of 



Ch. VII.] The Athenian Democracy 177 

universal history, we cannot allow it to take a high place 
among the governments of the world. If I have rightly 
analysed the working and spirit of the Athenian demo- 
cracy in the preceding paragraphs, its characteristics are 
the complete supremacy of the mass meetings of the 
people, jealousy of conspicuous merit in the officers of 
state, the satisfaction of the sentiment of equality pre- 
ferred to the furtherance of public business. It is not for 
a moment denied that along with these characteristics 
went some of the noblest kind — remarkable skill in the 
details of the constitution, great magnanimity, a toler- 
ance and absence of vindictiveness unparalleled in that 
age and country. But if we consider the democracy 
merely as an engine of government, these points are not 
so important as those above mentioned. And, as a 
result, the action of the government lacked rapidity, 
continuity, and tenacity. With such an instrument it was 
impossible even for great statesmen like Themistocles, 
Pericles, and Demgsthenes to accomplish the task which 
they felt to be most necessary for Greece — the formation 
of a power, strong and united, capable of resisting the 
attacks of barbarian enemies. Greece provided the ideas 
of civilisation : it was left to Rome to give the material 
basis on which they could grow and spread. There can 
be no more striking contrast than that between these two 
great states, to both of which civiHsation owes so much. 
The divergence is equally marked in government and 
society. Everything in Rome breathes the spirit of sub 
ordination and loyalty. The respect in which the family 
was held gave coherence and strength to the whole of 
society. The loyal obedience of each man to his political 
superior, the devotion of all to the state, gave Rome in 
her dealings with foreign powers an unequalled tenacity. 

12 



178 



Greece in the Age of Pericles 



[Ch. VII. 



The Athenian democracy compared to the government of 
Rome is like a pleasure-yacht in comparison to an iron- 
clad. It is hard to pass from the Athenian democracy 
with a hostile verdict, but it seems impossible to deny 
that when it had reached its greatest development it ex- 
hibited the gravest defects, whether for guidance in time 
of war or administration during peace. 

Note. — I must acknowledge my great indebtedness in this 
chapter to J. W. Headlam's Election by Lot at Athens (Cambridge 
University Press). The last half of Aristotle's Athenian Constitution 
(see note to ch. iv.) gives a clear and interesting account of the 
actual working of the Athenian Constitution. Grote's defence of 
the democracy is to be found everywhere in his history. Note 
perhaps especially chs. xlvi., xlvii. For Curtius' views see Book III., 
chs. ii., iii. The quotations from Plato and Thucydides in this 
chapter are from Jow^ett's translation. 




Stone Bema. 




Restoration of the East End of the Parthenon. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



PERICLES : HIS POLICY AND HIS FRIENDS. 



Pericles' Private Life. 



Pericles' ancestors had played a prominent part in 

Greek history, and the part they had played made it 

almost impossible for their descendant, if he became a 

man of note, to take his stand on the conservative side. 

His father was Xanthippus, who had commanded the 

Athenians at the battle of Mycale, w^hen the land and 

sea forces of Persia were so entirely defeated. And ten 

years before that (489) he had acquired notoriety in a 

more questionable way by impeaching Miltiades, the hero 

179 



^ 



1 80 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. viii. 

of Marathon, for failure in his expedition against Paros. 
As a result of this accusation Miltiades had been con- 
demned to a heavy fine, and died before it was paid. 
Cimon, the great conservative leader, was the son of 
Miltiades. The accusation and its results were not to 
be lightly forgotten, and the sons of the two opponents 
of 489 naturally were themselves opponents in the later 
political contests. His descent on his mother's side 
was an even more decidedly liberal influence. His 
mother was Agariste, a descendant of Clisthenes, the 
celebrated tyrant of Sicyon, and the niece of that 
Clisthenes who, after the expulsion of the Pisistratids, 
laid the foundation of the later Athenian democracy. 
Clisthenes belonged to the family of the Alcmaeonidae, 
one of the foremost of Athenian families, but supposed 
to be tainted with religious pollution. For at the 
beginning of Greek history, in the seventh century B.C., 
a certain nobleman, Cylon, had plotted to seize the 
Acropolis and master Athens. The plot w^as frustrated. 
Cylon himself escaped, but a number of his adherents 
had been put to death, in spite, so it w^as alleged, of 
promises of safety and the protection of the deity to 
whose altars they clung. The men who had been 
guilty of this murder and sacrilege belonged to the 
family of the Alcmaeonidae, and the insult offered by 
them to the deity was supposed to taint the whole 
family and all its descendants. It shows how strong 
was the vein of superstition running through all the 
vigorous intellectual hfe of Greece, that more than a 
century and a half after the offence had been committed 
the opponents of Pericles found it worth their while to 
bring the charge of pollution against him. 

Pericles was born, perhaps, in the year 493, certainly 



Stadia 



1- Parthenon 

2. Erechtheum 

3. Propylaea 

4. Prytaneum 

5. Temple of Asclepius 

6. Stoa of Eumenes 

7. Mon. of Lysicrates 

8. El eu sin turn 

9. Mefroon 

10. Bouleuterion 

11. r/>o/os 

12. Temple of Furies 

13. Temple of Ares 

14. Enneacrounos 




To face page i8o.] 



PLAN OF ATHENS. 



Walker €y Boutall sc. 



Ch. viii.j Pericles: His Policy and His Friends i8i 

about that date. He must have had some recollection 
of the flight to Salamis and the triumphant return. 
The years of his life when impressions are most vivid 
and lasting were full of the triumphs of Hellas, in which 
Athens took a leading and an ever-increasing part. If, 
as a politician, he rated the strength of Athens too 
highly, her career during the time of his manhood must 
have seemed to justify the most sanguine anticipations. 
The political environment of his youth has been 
sufficiently dwelt on. Its intellectual character also 
deserves noting. The steady faith, the fixed ideals of 
the age of the Persian wars were giving way before a 
new intellectual movement and the philosophical criticism 
that was born in Asia Minor. The old and the new 
existed side by side, ^schylus and Pindar, with their 
unwavering faith, are contemporaries of philosophers 
who had rejected every particle of the orthodox Greek 
mythology ; they are contemporary with the youth, if 
not with the activity, of men as thoroughly representative 
of the age of analysis and scepticism as Euripides and 
Socrates. And to the newer rather than the earlier age 
Pericles belongs. We know nothing of those details of 
his early life and education which a modern biographer 
would take care to give us. Doubtless his early training 
was that of the ordinary Athenian boy — a cultivation of 
the mind and the body : reading, writing, and methods 
of calculation, with the poems of Homer as the basis for 
all intellectual and moral culture. But the city life of 
Athens must have been for him and for most Athenian 
youths the chief source of training and knowledge. As 
he advanced in years the intellectual currents of the 
time began to affect him, and we have sufficient infor- 
mation on this point to allow us to say who were his 



1 82 Gf'eece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. viil. 

chief teachers and what was the bent of his mind and 
tastes. Zeno of Elea, Anaxagoras, and Damon are 
mentioned as Pericles' teachers in philosophy. What- 
ever divergencies there were between these three, they 
had all abandoned the mythological explanation of the 
universe and were seeking for some new basis of life. 
Zeno's influence upon Pericles does not seem to have 
been great. Plutarch tells us that Pericles attended his 
lectures on natural philosophy, and implies that he was 
especially attracted by his dialectical skill, for "Zeno 
had made an especial study of how to reduce any man 
to silence who questioned him, and how to enclose him 
between the horns of a dilemma " : a power that would 
be often valuable to Pericles in the ecclesia. Damon 
was especially known as a " musician " ; but the word 
in Greek would cover much more than with us, and 
might include all philosophy. Plutarch tells us that it 
was political philosophy that he taught under the name 
of music : " he trained Pericles for his political contests 
as a trainer prepares an athlete for the games." That 
Damon connected music with politics we know from a 
passage of Plato, and his pohtical interests are shown 
also by the testimony of Plutarch, who records that he 
was ostracised eventually "as a busybody and lover of 
despotism.'' But more important than either of these 
was Anaxagoras. He was a physical philosopher, and 
continued the speculative task that had been begun by 
Thales. All the philosophers of the time strove to 
explain and understand the w^orld without reference to 
supernatural causes. The earlier thinkers had found 
the cause of all things in matter itself. Anaxagoras 
found it in something independent of matter, and the 
something he called " Nous " — Intelligence. " In the 



Ch. viiL] Pe7'icles : His Policy ajid His Friends 183 

beginning all things were Chaos ; then there came 
Intelligence and set all things in order." He lived 
in close intimacy with Pericles, and became for 
that reason an object of dislike to the opponents of 
Pericles. From this teacher Pericles derived two great 
advantages. In the first place, his acceptance of the 
system of Anaxagoras gave him an elevation and cohesion 
of thought that lifted him above the entanglement of 
petty political details and passions. ^^ It gave him,'' 
says Plutarch, "a haughty spirit and a lofty style of 
oratory, far removed from vulgarity and low buffoonery, 
and also an imperturbable gravity of countenance and 
a calmness of demeanour and appearance which no 
incident could disturb as he was speaking, while the 
tone of his voice never showed that he heeded any 
interruption." And it freed him from the superstitious 
fears common to most of the Greeks and often injurious 
to action. Herodotus shows us a serious check in the 
battle of Platsea because the omens would not allow 
the Spartan king to order the attack \ other instances are 
not wanting in Greek history of serious actions done or 
left undone because of omens and prodigies. From 
this disturbing element of superstition Pericles was 
completely emancipated. A story told by Plutarch is 
here worth quoting as typical of Pericles and of the 
time : *' It is said that once a ram with one horn was 
seqt from the country as a present to Pericles, and that 
Lampon the prophet, as soon as he saw this stray horn 
growing out of the middle of the creature's forehead, 
said that as there were two parties in the state, that of 
Thucydides and that of Pericles, he who possessed 
this mystic animal would unite the two into one. 
Anaxagoras cut open the beast's skull, and pointed out 



184 Gi'eece in the Age of Pericles Ch. Vlil.] 

that its brain did not fill the whole space, but was 
sunken into the shape of an egg, and all collected at 
that part from which the horn grew. At the time all 
men looked with admiration on Anaxagoras, but after- 
wards, when Thucydides had fallen and all the state 
had become united under Pericles, they admired Lampon 
equally.'^ 

Art as well as philosophy claimed his attention ; but 
before we speak of his relations to the great sculptor 
Phidias, it is better to speak of the woman who exer- 
cised over him so great an influence. Of the position 
of women in Greece more will be said in the next 
chapter. We have already seen how subordinate it was. 
The Athenian women of pure birth could not, as a rule, 
read or write. They lived a life of complete seclusion 
in apartments set apart for them. Without exaggerating 
the evils of their position, it is clear that men of 
the highest culture in Athens did not and could not 
find intellectual companionship in the citizen-women of 
Athens. But there was another class of women in the 
city — the Hetaerse. We translate the word courtesans, 
but the translation is a Httle misleading. Their position 
was recognised and accepted by the thought and senti- 
ment of the time, and though some of them lived in com- 
plete degradation, others formed unions with Athenian 
citizens which, though the law could not recognise them, 
approached in many respects more nearly to the id^al 
of marriage than the legitimate marriages of Athens. 
To this class belonged Aspasia. We know little about 
her, and though some scholars have tried to develop a 
life of her from that little, the attempt has not been 
successful. She was a native of Miletus. How and 
when she came to Athens is quite uncertain. Pericles, 



Ch. VIII.] Pericles: His Policy and His Friends 185 

when first he knew her, was married to a relation, and 
neither party to the union was satisfied with it. The 
marriage tie sat Hghtly on Athenians. Though two sons 
had been born to him, Pericles separated from his wife, 
"handed her over," is Plutarch's expression, "to another 
husband '' ; and shortly afterwards he began to live with 
Aspasia, and lived with her to his death. 

The glimpses that we get of her and of her influence 
are most tantalising. Of few women in Greek history 
do we know so much, but there is no Greek woman of 
whom we so desire to know more. That Pericles was 
passionately devoted to her is certain. Plutarch repeats 
a contemporary report that " he never went in or out of 
his house without kissing her." The only occasion when 
Pericles broke through his Olympian calm was when 
Aspasia's life was in danger. At her trial, to be men- 
tioned later, he wept as he asked the jury not to strike 
so heavy a blow at himself as her death would bring. 
Her influence on him was largely due to intellectual 
sympathies. What her opinions were we cannot ascer- 
tain ; but she was the friend of Socrates, Phidias, and 
most eminent Athenians of that great age, and that is 
a sufficiently strong tribute to her intellect. It seems 
also highly probable that she was dissatisfied with the 
position of women in Athens, and tried to change it. 
Some scandal was caused in Athenian society because 
some prominent citizens brought their wives to listen to 
her discourses, and the probability is great that those 
discourses were often of the need for a better educa- 
tion and a fuller life for women, in order that marriages 
might be more satisfactory. The irregularity of her 
position, the eminence of Pericles and her influence over 
him, made her the natural mark for the arrows of his 



1 86 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. vill. 

political opponents. The comic poets, who filled in 
Athens, to some degree, the place occupied by the news- 
paper press of to-day, were full of sallies against her. 
She was alluded to as Omphale, the woman who be- 
witched Hercules ; as Deianira, the wife of Hercules, 
and the cause of his death. Or she was called Hera, 
the consort of the " Olympian " Pericles, and under this 
title allusion was made to the dominant influence that 
she was supposed to exercise over the affairs of Athens. 
Of Aspasia's political influence there is, however, no 
evidence at all. Personal and intellectual companion- 
ship he found with her, but in his political measures he 
took his cue from no one. 

Phidias has been mentioned as one of the frequenters 
of the salon of Aspasia, and he deserves further notice 
in order to emphasise the artistic interests of Pericles. 
Phidias, by general consent the world's greatest sculptor, 
had already in Cimon's time been employed in decorating 
Athens. The facts of his life are wrapped in a most 
annoying obscurity, but it is certain that before Pericles 
arrived at power, about 445 B.C., Phidias had already 
gained a great reputation. Statues from his chisel had 
been sent to Delphi in commemoration of the victories 
over the Persians. Already he had fashioned the co- 
lossal statue of Athena Promachus (the defender of 
Athens) which stood close to the entrance of the 
Acropolis. But his great opportunity came when Peri- 
cles assumed the real management of Athenian affairs. 
Between the statesman and the sculptor there were 
many grounds for sympathy. For Phidias's devotion to 
his art did not prevent him from taking a keen interest 
in the intellectual and political movement of the time. 
Himself an Athenian, he sympathised with the desire of 



Ch. VIII.] Pericles: His Policy and His Friends 187 

Pericles to glorify Athens. He was appointed by Pericles 
general overseer of all the public works of the city, and 
superintended therefore that rich adornment of Athens 
which is one of the most important achievements of the 
Periclean era. But the statesman was not merely the 
patron of the sculptor ; he was also his intimate friend. 
We shall see that when Pericles' opponents, fearing as 
yet to strike directly at him, singled out his closest 
friends for their attacks, Phidias was one of those most 
bitterly persecuted. 

In personal appearance Pericles was supposed to re- 
semble Pisistratus ; though perhaps the resemblance 
was the invention of his opponents, who asserted that 
he was aiming at the establishment of a tyranny. He 
was graceful in figure, w^e are told, but his head was 
disproportionately high. And this physical peculiarity 
was constantly made the subject of allusion by the comic 
poets, who belonged for the most part to his political 
opponents. They called him " onion-headed " ; they 
invented all manner of nicknames for him, all drawn 
from the shape of his head. It was asserted that in all 
his statues he was represented as wearing his helmet in 
order to cover this deformity ; though his long tenure of 
the office of strategus (general) made the wearing of the 
official helmet natural enough. He possessed a very 
pleasant voice and great fluency of speech. 

In his character what impressed his contemporaries 
most was his serenity, his reserve, his stately calm which 
they called '' Olympian." Though the favour of the 
ecclesia was the first condition of all his activity, he 
seemed untouched by its passions. In speaking he 
used little gesture, never attacked his political oppo- 
nents, or heeded their attacks upon himself. He had 



1 88 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. viil. 

introduced measures which completed the democracy 
and led directly to the rule of the demagogues. Some 
of his measures are certainly not without a taint of de- 
magogism. But in his relations to the people he always 
adopted the tone of an authoritative counsellor, not of a 
flatterer or a mere follower of their directions. He did 
not speak constantly in the ecclesia, but only came for- 
ward on special occasions, and the rarity of his utterances 
added to their influence. It is interesting to hear that 
he was fond of introducing into his speeches illustrations 
from natural science. Aristophanes afterwards spoke of 
him as '^ thundering and lightning and confounding 
Greece." But this can refer only to the effect of his 
speeches, not to their style. Although perfectly fluent 
in utterance, he wrote his speeches before delivering 
them, and was the first, we are told, to adopt this 
custom ; and whenever he mounted the Bema he prayed 
that nothing unseemly might fall from his lips. 

His private life was marked by the same serenity and 
restraint. We cannot, unfortunately, draw aside the cur- 
tain that hides from us his personal intercourse with his 
friends. We should probably have a different idea of him 
if we could see him with Aspasia and Socrates, Phidias 
and Anaxagoras. But the citizens found him austere. 
He was rarely seen abroad. Men said of him that he 
was never seen in any street except that which led to the 
market-place and the ecclesia. Cimon was a constant and 
welcome guest at the private festivities of the Athenians. 
But Pericles accepted no invitations. It was said that 
he was only once seen at any festal gathering ; that was 
at the marriage of his cousin, and then he withdrew 
very early. This strict retirement is a very curious 
trait in the successful leader of a democracy. It was 



Ch. VIII.] Pericles: His Policy and His Friends 189 

doubtless partly the result of his disposition. He found 
in Aspasia's salon much more congenial intercourse than 
among the average citizens of Athens. It may have 
been partly due to policy and partly to prudence. For 
though Greece knew little of religious persecution, the 
fate of Socrates, and the subsequent prosecution of 
Pericles' friends for impiety, show us how dangerous 
might be the public expression of the opinions on philo- 
sophy and religion that Pericles held. 

Philosopher, artist, orator, statesman, demagogue — 
Pericles is all these. He is an excellent example of 
the complete and harmonious culture of Athens at this 
epoch. But before all things else he was a statesman, 
and it is on his activity as a statesman that his repu- 
tation mainly depends. 

Pericles as a Statesman. 

How Pericles had succeeded in his political struggle 
with Cimon we have already seen. But Cimon, with 
his bluff sailor ways and exclusive interest in matters 
of war, had not been a very effective leader of a political 
party in a democracy. When he died the conservative 
party was championed by a relation of the deceased 
Cimon — Thucydides, the son of Milesias. This man 
devoted all his attention to the political contest, and 
kept up a regular opposition to Pericles in the ecclesia. 
The conservative party had now given up all reactionary 
hopes. The full democracy, with the equality of the 
citizens and the payment of all political duties, had 
to be accepted. To overthrow it nothing less than a 
violent political revolution would have been required. 
The questions that separated the parties related not to 
methods of government but to administration. Was 



190 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. vill. 

friendship or enmity to Sparta to be the normal condition 
of the poHcy of Athens ? Was Athens in her dealings 
with the league to accept resolutely all the consequences 
of the imperial position she had gained, or was she still 
to endeavour to keep up the appearance of equahty 
and liberty ? Was the tribute which the " allies " or 
subjects paid to be expended purely as Athens liked, 
or were the wishes of those who paid the money to 
be taken into some consideration ? These were the 
questions that agitated the ecclesia, and the conservative 
party, with Thucydides as its leader, demanded friendship 
with Sparta and a tender handling of the allies. The 
struggle was a very keen one. No compromise, such 
as had been made with Cimon, was possible. It was 
really necessary for the due administration of the 
Athenian state that some decision should be come to. 
It was the party of Thucydides that made the appeal 
to ostracism, but when the vote was taken their own 
leader was condemned (444 b.c). From this time until 
his death Pericles was the undisputed master of Athens, 
and as the whole character of the Athenian state seems 
determined by a desire to have no master, this undis- 
puted position of Pericles is a phenomenon that deserves 
further examination and explanation. 

The Political Position of Pericles. 

The very striking talents of Pericles as well as his 
stately and commanding character helped to give him 
his position as unquestioned leader in the state. But 
they are not sufficient to explain it. At a later period 
of Athenian history such talents and such a character 
would probably have made the people rather suspicious 
than obedient. But in the middle of the fifth century 



Ch. VIII.] Pericles: His Policy and His Fi'iends 191 

B.C. the democracy was recently founded. The rule of 
privilege was only just dead. Men were full of gratitude 
for the new feeling of independence and authority that 
they had acquired, and grateful to the man who had 
given it to them. Not yet certain of their ability to use 
their new powers, they were ready to follow any one 
whom they knew to be wholly on the popular side. 
The abuse of power and the sceptical influences of the 
time had not yet destroyed the sentiments of reverence 
and admiration. Not yet did the people "regard it as 
monstrous that they should not be allowed to do what 
they liked." It was fortunate for Pericles that he came 
at this epoch. After his death no one ever again was 
able to acquire the commanding influence that he held. 

The basis of his power was the Bema on the Pnyx, 
from which he addressed the general assembly. He 
held important offices in the state, and they were valuable 
to him, for they allowed him to see that the policy which 
had been adopted on his proposition should be carried 
out in the spirit of the proposer. But in themselves 
they would not have given him the guidance of the 
Athenian state. He was the leader of the people 
because when he spoke in the assembly they listened ; 
what he advised they adopted. There was no position 
in the state that could va any way rival that. Most of 
the officers were appointed by lot. All held office for a 
year only, and the most important, the generals, might 
be deposed during the course of the year upon the 
unexplained vote of the people. Until a people is so 
far carried away by the passion for equality as to prefer 
the gratification of that sentiment to solid success and 
good administration, it must feel the necessity for some 
guidance. From the ordinary offices of the state no 



192 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. vill. 

such guidance could come ; and so the place was left 
empty for the orator in the ecclesia. And Pericles was 
an orator of great fluency and persuasive power, and in 
addition a statesman of high rank. 

At the election to those offices which were not given 
by lot the people again and again testified their full 
confidence in Pericles. Fifteen times he was elected 
Strategus (General). He had again and again proved 
his capacity as a commander, both by land and sea, and 
this office gave him the right, when hostilities broke out, 
to take the lead in military operations. But if he guided 
the policy of the people, it was not as Strategus, but as 
leader of the people in the general assembly. And 
besides the office of general, he from time to time held 
many others. We do not hear of his election to those 
offices that were determined by lot ; though he must 
certainly have passed through these with the rest of the 
Athenians. He was, however, elected to the post of 
Director of the Public Works, and in this capacity co- 
operated with Phidias and other artists in the adorn- 
ment of Athens. In this capacity vast sums of money 
passed through his hands, and his influence must have 
been very great. We hear of him too directing the 
fortifications and the preparation of war material, and 
arranging the public festivals of Athens. 

But upon his power in the ecclesia everything de- 
pended, and what his conduct there was Thucydides 
has told us in some striking sentences. " Deriving 
authority from his capacity and acknowledged worth, 
being also a man of transparent integrity, he was able to 
control the multitude in a free spirit : he led them rather 
than was led by them ; for not seeking power by dishonest 
arts, he had no need to say pleasant things, but, on the 



Ch. VIII.] Pericles: His Policy and His Fi'iends 193 

strength of his own high character, could venture to 
oppose and even to anger them. When he saw them 
unreasonably elated and arrogant his words humbled and 
awed them, and when they were depressed by ground- 
less fears he sought to reanimate their confidence. Thus 
Athens, though still in name a democracy, was in fact 
ruled by her greatest citizen. But his successors were 
more on an equality with one another, and, each one 
struggling to be first himself, they were ready to sacrifice 
the whole conduct of affairs to the whims of the moment." 
The government of Athens under Pericles was indeed, 
whatever its official title, a popular dictatorship. It gave 
to Athens the concentration and consistency of policy 
that later she so terribly lacked, and at the same time 
she enjoyed the fullest personal liberty, and every citizen 
felt that the greatness of the city was his own. / 

Pericles' Policy. 

It is now time to consider what Pericles' policy was 
with regard to the various important questions which 
Athens had to decide. And, omitting the question of the 
internal constitution of Athens, which had already been 
settled, there were (i) the relation of Athens to Sparta, 
(ii) the treatment of the allies, (iii) the domestic and 
internal policy of Athens. 

I. Athens and Sparta. 

On this question the democratic and the conservative 
party had since Cimon's time stood in opposition. The 
latter necessarily looked to Sparta for support to those 
ancient institutions of the state which were jeopardised 
by the new democracy. Often they had taken a much 
higher ground. We have already seen how, when 

13 



194 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. Vlil. 

earthquake and revolt endangered the very existence of 
Sparta, Cimon had supported their appeal to Athens on 
grounds of Panhellenic patriotism. Sparta and Athens 
were natural yokefellows. If Sparta were wounded, 
Greece would be lame of one leg. And the conservative 
party had carried on this same policy even after the 
insult that Athens had received at Ithome. Sparta and 
Athens, they said, were both necessary to a complete 
Greece. If they could not be bound together in 
alliance, they should at any rate be friends and well- 
wishers, and every opportunity of strengthening friendship 
should be seized. The democratic party, and Pericles, 
its supreme leader, took up the opposite policy. Accord- 
ing to them, Athens and Sparta could not be friends. 
The divergence in character and in objects was so great 
as to make hostility the normal relation between them. 
War Pericles regarded as inevitable, and he desired to 
use the interval of peace that the thirty years' truce (445) 
had given in preparations for the great struggle. *^ We 
must be aware,'' he says in one of the speeches attributed 
to him by Thucydides, " that war will come, and the 
more willing we are to accept the situation, the less 
ready will our enemies be to lay hands on us." With 
the war constantly before his eyes, he desired to organise 
the state up to its utmost military capacity. He desired 
no expansion of empire ; he did his best to control the 
hot-headed politicians who talked of the invincibility 
of the Athenian navy, and proposed expeditions against 
Sicily or Carthage or Italy. The resources of Athens 
he knew would not be too great for the coming struggle, 
even if they were carefully economised and concentrated 
upon it. Dispersion of resources must lead to the ruin of 
Athens. 



Ch. viiL] Pericles: His Policy and His Friends 195 

If we a'ccept Pericles' policy of hostility to Sparta as 
the right one, we cannot fail to remark and admire the 
way in which he prepares for the struggle. And though 
the issue of the war when it came proved quite opposite 
to his anticipations, its course showed how justly he had 
pointed out the rocks on which Athens finally was wrecked 
But what are we to say of the policy of hostility itself? 
At first sight the nineteenth-century reader sympathises 
entirely with Cimon and his policy of conciliation. Weary 
of the jealousies between European powers, he sees in 
the policy of Pericles only something analogous to the 
jealousy between France and Germany or England and 
France. But the conditions are entirely different. The 
political problem before Greece was to secure for civili- 
sation such a broad and stable basis as has existed in 
Europe for some centuries. The problem could not, of 
course, be stated in these terms at the time of which we 
speak, but there is sufficient evidence to show that Peri- 
cles saw the necessity of securing a state more stable than 
the isolated gities of Greece could provide. The past 
history of Greece showed how incapable Sparta was of 
combining with Athens for a common cause, how in 
capacitated she was by her good as well as by her bad 
quahties for guiding the common destinies of Greece. 
No statesman could hope after recent experiences to 
bridge over the gulf that separated Athens from Sparta. 
It remained then for Athens alone to undertake the task 
in which Sparta would not assist. No one will say that 
she made no mistakes, or even that she showed the quali- 
ties requisite for a great success. But if Greek civilisation 
was to survive on a basis of political independence the 
task must be accomplished. We may therefore sym- 
pathise fully with the attempt of Pericles to found a great 



196 Gi'cece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. vill. 

and coherent Athenian empire, and it is because he failed 
in this task and no other state in Greece came so near to 
success that we are obliged to welcome the incorporation 
of Greece first in Macedon and then in Rome. 

2. The Treatment of the Allied States. 

It is from the same point of view that we can best 
understand the development of the relations between 
Athens and those states that were formerly her allies 
and now had become her subjects. By what process the 
change had come has already been sufficiently shown. 
By the faults of the allies themselves and by the faults 
of Athens, through natural development and through 
careful policy, Athens now found herself the mistress 
city of a large maritime empire, instead of the president 
of an equal confederacy. It is impossible to approve of 
the whole of Athens' conduct in the matter. The desire 
to rule had been one of the chief causes of the change. 
And Athens showed no tendency to anticipate Rome in 
giving the privileges of her own citizenship, in greater 
or less degree, to the subject states. The tendency was 
rather the opposite, for during the rule of Pericles there 
was a purging of the ranks of citizenship and a reduction 
in the number of those who could claim the privilege. 
The democracy of Athens in relation to the allies was 
nothing except the " Tyrant Demos." But when we 
consider how the activities of Greece were wasted in 
the petty squabbles of insignificant cities, we can only 
welcome the development of a larger state, even if the 
early stages of that development are not free from acts 
of injustice. 

Pericles insisted that Athens should not consent for 
an instant to abandon her imperial position. The ^^gean 



Ch. VIII.] Pericles: His Policy and His Friends 197 

Sea must become an Athenian preserve. A squadron of 
sixty triremes cruised for the greater part of the year 
among the islands, a standing menace to all who were 
thinking of revolt, and a school for the training of 
Athenian citizens in the difficult evolutions that were 
now necessary in Greek naval war. When in 440 Samos, 
one of the last of the allies that still remained indepen- 
dent, rebelled against Athens, Pericles himself com- 
manded the expedition, and reduced the recalcitrant 
island to obedience with considerable severity. Accord- 
ing to Greek ideas, Athens had no other right to do this 
than the right of the stronger. The sentiments expressed 
by an Athenian in the pages of Thucydides with regard 
to the matter probably represent the general feeling of 
the state. " An empire was offered to us : can you 
wonder that, acting as human nature always will, we 
accepted it and refused to give it up again, constrained 
by three all-powerful motives, ambition, fear, and interest ? 
We are not the first who have aspired to rule ; the world 
has ever held that the weaker must be kept down by the 
stronger. . . . Did justice ever deter any one from 
taking by force what he could ? ^' But though the 
Athenian Empire was an usurpation, Pericles strove to 
justify it, so far as might be, by equitable dealing with 
the subjects. The tribute lists show us that soon 
after his death the tribute was considerably increased. 
Pericles recognised that Athenian rule rested on the 
right of the stronger j but whilst he was alive Athens 
never used her power with the brutality that was exhi- 
bited after his death. Pericles saw that in the interests 
of Athens herself the subject states must be tenderly 
handled. 

The states complained that independence was denied 



198 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. vilL 

them, and that the payment of tribute was a mark of 
their servile position. But there were two other griev- 
ances not so clearly bound up with the empire which 
were also bitterly resented. x\nd as both were developed 
under the rule of Pericles they claim mention here. 

The first was the Cleruchies^ or settlements of Athenian 
citizens in the island states. About the middle of the 
fifth century these plantations began to be made system- 
atically, though something of the kind had always been 
known. In states that had been subdued after revolt 
or that were too weak to resist, Athenian citizens were 
planted as a garrison of occupation. These settlements 
did not form colonies ; for a Greek colony was always 
independent of the mother state. The settlers remained 
Athenian citizens, sharing in the benefits and the dignity 
of Athens, and their purpose was to watch the surrounding 
population, to report any signs of revolt or to repress 
an actual outbreak. The land occupied by them had of 
course been taken from the subject state. It is certain 
too that the Athenian settlers regarded themselves as the 
superiors of those among whom they lived, and treated 
them with contempt. There were thus material and senti- 
mental reasons for the bitter hate that was felt against 
them. Euboea and the Chersonese, Naxos, Andros, 
Lemnos, Imbros, were among the places where Athenian 
citizens were to be found in permanent occupation. A 
glance at the map will show that most of these states 
lie between Athens and the Black Sea, and they were 
probably partly intended to secure the Athenian corn 
supply, that came mainly from that quarter. 

The other grievance was the transference of the deci- 
sion of trials from the state where the offence took place 
to the Athenian law courts. Perhaps we do not know the 



Ch. VIII.] Pericles: His Policy and His Friends 199 

details of this system quite sufficiently to feel confident 
of our verdict in the matter. But we know that for 
some time before the Peloponnesian war broke out all 
trials involving the life of a citizen and all civil cases in 
which the sum involved was large were transferred for 
decision to an Athenian jury. It is quite possible that 
the Athenian jury would give a keener scrutiny and 
a fairer decision than could be obtained in the subject 
states. But the complete loss of independence was 
rendered painfully evident by such a system, And when 
we remember that the jury-fees were one of the chief 
sources of maintenance for a large section of the 
Athenian people, and that therefore it was of import- 
ance to them that there should be no lack of trials, 
we need not hesitate in affirming that the principal 
reason for the new system was to be found, not in any 
considerations of equity or good administration of the 
law, but in the desire of the people of Athens to make 
the rule of the empire profitable to themselves. 

The question is worth asking. Did Pericles really con- 
template the permanent management of a considerable 
empire by the democracy of Athens ? We have already 
seen what the democratic system was : how the reality of 
power lay with an assembly that must often have contained 
five thousand men ; how the whole system of government 
was designed to exclude special ability; how entirely 
absent was any means for the procuring of coherence or 
permanence in the policy of the state. Did Pericles 
seriously contemplate the foundation of an empire on 
such a shifting basis as that? Some contemporaries 
doubted his intentions. Men said he was aiming at a 
tyranny, and this was the point of the frequent com- 
parisons between him and Pisistratus. Towards the 



200 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. viii. 

end of his career Cleon and the more anarchical of the 
democrats charged him with checking the action of the 
democracy. And as we have already seen, Thucydides, 
though full of admiration for him, pronounces the govern- 
ment of Athens in his hands to have been ^' nominally a 
democracy, but really a personal government by the first 
man in the state." The question admits of no certain 
solution. Nothing that we know of Pericles gives us the 
idea of a schemer for power. The full development of 
the democracy was due to him, and everything makes for 
the behef that it had been the work of one who believed 
in what he was doing. But the ready way in which for 
fifteen years the democracy accepted his control may 
have blinded him to the inherent tendencies of such a 
form of government; and when we see, towards the close 
of his life, his difficulties with the most advanced demo- 
crats and his suppression of public discussion in the first 
year of the war, we may believe that if the great catas- 
trophe of his death had not occurred Athens would have 
seen some attempt to strengthen the executive of the 
state. 

3. The Domestic Policy of Pericles. 

The policy of Pericles to Sparta and the allies of 
Athens is defensible, but its justice and expediency may 
certainly be questioned. It was, at any rate, unsuccess- 
ful : the Athenian Empire has left no mark on universal 
history ; the struggle with Sparta ended in the political 
ruin of Athens. Had there been nothing in the policy 
of Pericles except what has been already mentioned, he 
would still be a striking figure in Greek history, and 
his policy would be regarded as a splendid failure that 
reflected credit on the author. But we have not yet 



Ch. VIII.] Pericles: His Policy and His Friends 201 

seen that which makes his period of supreme influence 
so resplendent in the world's history. His true greatness 
lies in his domestic policy; he saw wherein the true 
greatness of the Athenian people lay, and assisted its 
development. In politics and in war the Greeks have 
many superiors ; their true service to mankind was 
artistic and intellectual. It was in Athens, under 
Pericles, that the intellectual and artistic life of Greece 
was exhibited most perfectly ; and as Pericles helped 
the growth of that life, part of its glory is reflected 
back upon him. 

This is a subject too great to be treated of in a few 
paragraphs at the end of a chapter. Here only can 
be mentioned the glory of sculpture and architecture 
with which Athens covered herself, and the part played 
by Pericles in the work. The income of Athens, if 
meagre when estimated by a modern standard, was 
in the judgment of contemporaries almost incredibly 
large. The main source of that income was the tribute 
of the allies. Originally, as we have seen, Athens 
merely administered the fund in the interests of all the 
allies. But the confederacy had been changed to an 
empire, the treasury had been moved from Delos to 
Athens. The original assessment had been for war 
against Persia ; but now all hostilities had long since 
ceased, and the assessments had not on the whole 
diminished. As a result there was a great annual 
surplus. How was Athens to deal with it? It was 
entirely within her control. None of the states were 
strong enough to make any effective protest, and indeed 
it was not the way in which the money was spent, but 
the necessity of paying it in the first instance, against 
which they most desired to protest. 



202 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. viii. 

Opinion on this point was not by any means unanimous 
in Athens. The conservative party — the party of Cimon 
and Thucydides — demanded that the money paid by 
the alhes should be spent in the interests of the alHes. 
They did not accept the Athenian Empire as a fact ; they 
protested against the employment of the fund on objects 
from which Athens only would profit. On the contrary, 
to Pericles and his followers the imperial position of 
Athens was the central fact of their policy. The money 
belonged to rVthens as the taxes paid by subjects belong 
to a master. They would use what was their own as 
seemed best to themselves. Arguments, usually of a 
sophistical kind, were brought forward to support this 
policy. When the conservative party alleged that the 
employment of the money was bringing dishonour to 
Athens, "that Greece was outraged and felt herself 
openly tyrannised over when she saw Athens using the 
funds which she extorted from it for war against the 
Persians for gilding and beautifying the city as if it were 
a vain woman, and adorning it with precious marbles 
and statues and temples worth a thousand talents," 
the Periclean party replied that the money had been 
paid in order that the ^gean Sea might be free from 
all fear of the Persians ; the Athenians had fully 
achieved that result, and owed no one, therefore, any 
account of the way in which they spent the money. 

With the money thus obtained Athens proceeded to 
make herself probably the most beautiful city that the 
world has yet seen. To this task of Pericles circum- 
stances were surprisingly propitious. The Athenian 
treasury was full. Greek sculpture was now fast emerging 
from its archaic roughness into full control over material 
and expression. Phidias was, without question, the first 



Ch. VIII.] Pericles : His Policy and His Fiiends 203 

sculptor of the time, and he was an Athenian, and to 
Athens came now the most prominent sculptors from all 
parts of Greece. The sides of Mount Pentelicus gave 
the best marble with no great expenditure. Best of all, 
perhaps, the impulse of the Persian war had not yet died 
out. Athens was full of a splendid national pride for 
her share in that great struggle ; and though the sceptical 
movement had begun, it had not yet taken from the 
people a general veneration for the gods and a belief in 
the legends concerning them. Fifty years later Athens 
would have been without the high hopes, the general 
enthusiasm, and the common beliefs and affections of 
the Periclean period; fifty years earlier she would not 
have possessed either the wealth or the artistic ability for 
the task. 

On all sides temples, theatres, and porticoes began to 
rise. But the centre of all was the adornment of the 
Acropolis. The holy rock had originally been merely 
the citadel of Athens. Even after the Persian wars its 
main object was to serve as a last defence for the city ; 
but the rapid growth of Athens, the long walls and the 
extensive fortifications of the city, had taken away all 
military importance from the Acropolis. If the outer 
fortifications were once passed, it would be useless to 
hold out on the great rock in the centre ; only a fraction 
of the population could be accommodated there. It was 
possible, therefore, now to adorn it with a single eye to 
architectural effect. 

Let us look at the Acropolis, as it was when the work 
of the Periclean age was over. The chronology of the 
various buildings is full of interest and difficulty : but it 
is not of sufficient importance to detain us here. 

On the western side only was there easy access to the 



204 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. viii. 

sacred hill. It was from here that Xerxes had attacked it, 
and in earlier times this side had been strongly defended. 
But there was no need for that now. A splendid mass 
of buildings arose on this side, planned by the architect 
Mnesicles. At the top of the steps stood a porch of 
marble columns in the simple Doric style, leading into 
a great hall, and out from the hall through another 
porch was the road to the Acropolis. When the visitor 
of the Periclean age emerged through the Propylaea (or 
porch) into the Acropolis itself, he saw on all hands 
sculpture and temples of a beauty certainly at that time 
without parallel. Before him and slightly upon his left 
stood the colossal statue of Athena Promachus (the 
defender of the city). She stood upon a high pedestal, 
with spear raised in martial attitude. Men said that 
sailors as they rounded the promontory of Sunium could 
see the sun shining on the brazen point of her spear. 

But it is not the statues so much as the temples that 
deserve our notice. Immediately to the right of the 
Propylaea and on a bastion that is actually behind the 
entrance to the rock stood the temple of Wingless Victory. 
Its date is doubtful, but it belongs to the Periclean age. 
It was probably erected to chronicle the victory of the 
Greeks over the Persians, and commands the most 
beautiful view over the Athenian plain, the bay of 
Salamis, and the islands and mountains beyond. The 
structure was a very small one, i8 feet wide and 27 
feet long, and the columns are not 14 feet in height. 
The architecture and the sculpture with which it is 
adorned are of the greatest beauty, but other more 
important temples demand our attention. On the 
north side of the hill stood the temple which is now 
known as the Erechtheum. That was not its ancient 



Ch. VIII.] Pericles : His Policy and His Friends 205 

title. It was dedicated to Athena Polias (the guardian 
of the city) and to Pandrosos, the goddess of dew, and 
the name of Erechtheus, the legendary king of Athens, 
was also connected with it. The structure, of which 
the splendid remains are still standing, was probably 
planned and begun, but certainly not completed, in 
the lifetime of Pericles. This was the most sacred 
temple on the Acropolis. Others might commemorate 
recent victories over the Persians or the still more modern 
greatness of Athens, but here were the symbols of earlier 
worship and reminiscences of more naive faiths than 
those of the age of Pericles. The legend said that 
in the beginning Poseidon and Athena had striven to- 
gether for the possession of Athens, and that in support 
of his claim Poseidon had produced a spring of salt 
water and Athena had secured the victory by bringing 
forth the olive tree. Both salt spring and olive tree 
were within the precincts of the Erechtheum, the latter 
rendered more holy still by the story which told that 
after it had been burnt down by the Persians it had, 
in a single night, sent forth a fresh shoot a cubit in 
length. Here, too, was supposed to live the snake 
sacred to Athena to which the priests gave a honey- 
cake every month. Among other sacred treasures con- 
tained in the temple may be mentioned the ancient 
statue of Athena, made of sacred olive wood. It had 
been displaced as an object of worship by the new 
work of Phidias, but it was too sacred to be destroyed. 
The Erechtheum was different in shape from any other 
Greek temple of which we know anything, for it had 
upon the north and south two irregular porches. The 
exquisite finish of the details and the softer beauty of 
the Ionian style make it one of the most attractive of 



2o6 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. viii. 

all extant structures of antiquity, but its completion does 
not belong to the Periclean period, and it claims, there- 
fore, no further notice from us. 

Upon the south side of the hill the ground sank 
rapidly, and for this reason all the earlier buildings had 
been erected farther north. But under Pericles the 
ground had been raised, by means of a vast substructure 
of masonry, so as to place the temple, not merely on a 
level, but actually on an elevation above the rest of the 
Acropolis buildings. And here the temple to the virgin 
goddess Athena, the Parthenon, was built. It is one 
of the largest of the Greek temples — 228 feet long by 
10 1 feet broad ; there are eight columns at each end and 
seventeen on each side ; the columns are about 34 feet 
high, and consist of twelve sections or drums. But the 
Parthenon depended very little for its effect on mere 
size. It is surpassed in that respect by innumerable 
buildings, ancient and modern. But upon it were 
lavished all the artistic resources of Athens when her 
art was at its greatest. The proportions of the columns 
were carefully planned with an eye to effect ; it is said 
that there is no straight line in the whole building. 
Colour was freely used both outside and in for decora- 
tive purposes ; but the most universally admired feature 
of the whole building, both in ancient and modern times, 
is the wealth of sculpture bestowed upon it under the 
direction of Phidias, whose name is even more intimately 
connected with it than that of the actual architect, Ictinus. 
Only a small proportion of the vast amount of plastic 
work can have been the product of his own chisel, for 
there were fifty life-size statues, a carefully worked frieze 
524 feet in length, ninety-two sculpture groups in the 
metopes, besides the colossal statue shortly to be men- 



Ch. viil] Pericles : His Policy and His Friends 207 

tioned. But all was done under the direction of Phidias, 
and, if different hands and even different styles can be 
traced, the whole is the expression of his ideas. In the 
gable ends of the temple (the pediments) were groups 
of sculpture representing the birth of Athena and the 
contest between her and Poseidon for the possession 
of Athens. The metopes represented struggles with 
Centaurs and with Amazons, incidents famous in the 
legendary history of Athens. The frieze that ran round 
the building within the exterior row of columns repre- 
sented the great Panathenaic procession — the procession 
that took place every four years, in which all Athens 
joined, to present to the goddess Athena a newly woven 
robe, in recognition of her protection ; the gods sit as 
spectators of the ceremony. Lastly, inside the temple 
was the colossal statue of Athena, 39 feet high, made of 
gold and ivory upon a framework of wood. The costli- 
ness of the material ensured the early destruction of the 
statue, but we know that the goddess stood with a statuette 
of Victory upon her outstretched right hand, her helmet 
on her head, her left hand resting upon her shield, inside of 
which was curled the snake sacred to Athens and herself. 
The other temples of the Acropolis often have reference 
to the common victory of Greece in the Persian war : it 
is the glory of Athens alone that is proclaimed throughout 
the Parthenon. 

So the sacred rock received its marble diadem ; but 
these works of art did not stand alone. The theatre of 
Dionysus was improved ; a great temple, now called the 
Theseum, was built upon the north side of the Acropolis ; 
a concert hall, the Odeum, was constructed near the 
theatre. The Pnyx and the Agora received vast im- 
provements j the fortifications of the city and the suburbs 



2o8 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. vill. 

without the city were attended to. The architectural 
activity of the time extended beyond Athens. A great 
temple was built on the promontory of Sunium. The 
temple of Nemesis vvas built at Rhamnus, not far from 
Marathon, in commemoration of the great battle. Eleusis 
received the great temple of the Mysteries, designed by 
Ictinus, the architect of the Parthenon. Meanwhile 
the docks, harbour, and town of the Piraeus were 
receiving special attention. The streets of x\thens 
remained crooked, irregular, and poor ; but the Pir;«us 
was laid out on a regular plan with straight streets. 

This bare recital must suffice to give some idea of the 
architectural activities of Pericles, and the lavishing of 
the public money on such schemes as these formed one 
of the most important parts of his policy. His military 
and imperial schemes ended in ruin to Athens, though 
not through any fault of his. But the assistance he 
rendered to the intellectual and artistic life of Athens 
has assured him the gratitude of posterity. 



Note. — For all details of Pericles' private life, see Plutarch's 
Life of Pericles. For his public life, and his policy with regard to 
the war, the first two books of Thucydides are almost the only- 
authority. It will be interesting to compare the differing verdicts 
upon Pericles passed by Grote and Curtius among the modern, 
Thucydides and Aristotle among the ancient historians. The least 
favourable verdict is, perhaps, to be found in Evelyn Abbott's 
History of Greece^ Part II. (Longmans 6c Co.). 




Athens Restored according to a Design by the Late 
C. R. Cockerell, R.A. 



CHAPTER IX. 



SOCIETY IN GREECE. 

I PROPOSE in this chapter to give some account of the 
main features of social Hfe in Greece. The details of 
their dress and furniture, of their manners and customs, 
will not here be dwelt on ; but I shall try to exhibit the 
occupations of the people, the conditions of labour, 
the position of women, and, in conclusion, to analyse the 
characteristics of the Greeks. It is of Greek, not merely 
of Athenian, society that I wish to speak ; but Athens 
is so much more important than all the rest of the states 
of Greece together, that most attention will be devoted 
to her. 

The Occupations of the People. 

Commerce, trade, industry, were of comparatively little 

importance in ancient Greece. It is therefore often very 

209 14 



2 1 o Greece hi the Age of Pericles [Ch. ix. 

difficult to understand what were the ordinary occupa- 
tions of the inhabitants of Greece, and in what way they 
managed to gain a HveHhood. And yet some clear 
conception of this is very necessary if we are to under- 
stand Greek civilisation. 

The population of Greece was very far from homo- 
geneous. The difference between the population of 
Arcadia or Acarnania on the one hand, and Athens or 
Corinth on the other, must have been greater than the 
difference between Cornwall and London to-day. And 
nowhere was the population upon the same footing. 
Every state contained slaves and freemen, and in all the 
more advanced states the inhabitants could be further 
subdivided. In Sparta, as we have seen, there were the 
Spartans proper ; the free but non-Spartan population, 
the Perioeci; and the Helots, or serf class. Much the 
same classification we detect in Thessaly, where, besides 
the ruling class and the free population who did not 
rule, we hear of the Penestae, serfs in much the same 
position as the Spartan Helots. In Athens, too, we find 
a threefold division. For there, besides the citizen popu- 
lation and the slaves, we find a large and important class, 
the metics. These men were free Greeks resident in 
Attica who were not citizens. The Athenians boasted 
that their state had none of the exclusiveness of Sparta. 
There were no laws expelling strangers from their terri- 
tory. And as Athens became the great commercial 
centre of Greece, more and more foreigners flocked into 
her. The reforms of Clisthenes had allowed a large 
number of these men to become citizens of Athens, but 
the experiment had not been repeated. As the privileges 
of citizenship increased, the citizens became as anxious 
as any oligarchy to close all entrance to their ranks. 



Ch. IX.] Society in Greece 2 1 1 

There were therefore in the days of Pericles a very large 
number of foreigners resident in Attica, engaged in 
commerce, trade, or industry, protected by the Athenian 
state, but excluded from all participation in its privileges, 
pecuniary or otherwise. These were the so-called metics 
(metoeci). It is not possible to estimate their number, 
which was certainly large. The majority of them lived 
in the Piraeus, and a very large proportion of the trade 
and commerce of Athens was in their hands. The feeling 
in Athens was against commercial occupations ; political 
and military duties occupied too much of the time of 
Athenian citizens to allow them, as a rule, to devote 
themselves to commerce, and so it came to pass that 
aliens managed to get into their hands lucrative work 
for which the Athenians were, as a matter of fact, well 
suited. But the state nevertheless reaped a considerable 
advantage from them. The larger portion of the 
Athenian revenues came from taxes upon articles of 
commerce, exported or imported, and it was therefore 
of importance to the state that a brisk commercial life 
should be carried on. And, further, every family of 
metics paid an annual tax of twelve drachmae to the 
state. And besides the direct advantages to the treasury, 
it was obviously a good thing for Athens that the com- 
merce of the state should not be allowed to languish 
simply because the citizens were unable or unwilling to 
apply themselves to it. And so the metics were always 
patronised and encouraged by Athens. Many grew very 
wealthy. We hear occasionally of individuals who re- 
ceived the gift of citizenship for services rendered to 
the state. But they were always, as a class, kept in 
complete subordination to the citizens. By themselves 
they had no legal existence, and every metic had to put 



2 1 2 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. ix. 

himself under the patronage of an Athenian, who had 
to represent him in all trials at law. 

In thinking of the social life of Greece, we must re- 
member this large and important class of metics. We 
must remember, too, the vast mass of slaves, w^ho will be 
treated of later. But it is more important for our present 
purpose to inquire what were the occupations of the free 
citizens of Greece, and especially of Athens. 

Nowhere in Greece was the great industry of agriculture 
thought unworthy of a freeman. In earlier times, to till 
the fields and to fight were the two normal occupations. 
Even in the age of Pericles this must have been the case 
to a very large extent. In Arcadia and Boeotia, and in 
all the lesser-known states of Greece, the yeomanry 
formed the greater part of the state. In Sparta the 
number of fully privileged citizens was so small, and 
the number of their enemies so great, that the discip- 
line and preparations of war made other occupations 
impossible for them. The land was cultivated by the 
Perioeci or the Helots. But in Athens, down to the 
period at which we have arrived, the land of Attica was 
not only owned but actually worked by Athenian citizens. 
It had been a great object of the policy of Pisistratus to 
keep the Athenians settled in the country away from the 
political excitements of the city, where the republican 
spirit was most likely to be developed. But after Pisis- 
tratus the movement to the large tow^ns had gone on apace. 
The suburbs of Athens had grow^n rapidly. The market- 
place, the theatre, and the place of political assembly 
had more and more engrossed the attention of all who 
desired to share in the civilisation of Athens. And the 
Peloponnesian war acted disastrously in the same direc- 
tion. For many years the crops and homesteads of 



Ch. IX.] Society in Greece 2 1 3 

Athenian farmers were at the mercy of the Spartan in- 
vader, and all the citizens were cooped up for almost the 
whole of the year within the walls of Athens. And when 
the war was over city life had taken such a hold upon 
the population of Athens that the old class of peasant- 
farmers does not reappear. Citizens of Athens of course 
still held the land, for no landed property could be in 
the possession of any alien. But the land was worked by 
slaves, and the Athenian citizen had become merely the 
head manager and sole recipient of profits. But still agri- 
culture was regarded as the best occupation for a man- 
Euripides speaks of the farmer as the "sole mainstay 
of the state," and in Aristophanes' Peace we get a 
picture of rural felicity impressed upon the imagination 
by its contrast with the restraints and miseries of the 
Peloponnesian war. Peace is supposed to have been 
declared, and the Chorus speaks as follows : '' How de- 
lightful it is to get quit of helmet and cheese and onions ! 
For I have no pleasure in battles, but I love a long 
drinking bout by the fireside with my boon companions, 
when the driest logs of last summer's sawing have been 
set ablaze, and the chick-pease is roasting and the acorns 
are crackling. . . . There is no greater pleasure, when the 
fields are already sown and a nice rain is falling, than for 
some neighbour to say, ' What's to be done now, Comar- 
chides ? Heaven is good to us, and I have a mind for a 
drink. So, good wife, roast three pecks of beans and 
mix some wheat with them, and fetch out some figs, and 
call in the servants from the field, for the ground is soak- 
ing wet, and we can't dress the vine leaves or dig round 
the roots to-day. And you may fetch from my house a 
thrush and two larks, and I've got too some beestings 
and four pieces of hare, if the cat didn't run off with 



2 14 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. ix. 

them last night. Bring three of these for us, and call 
^schinades to join us in our drinking.' But when the 
grasshopper's sweet note is heard, how pleasant to watch 
the Lemnian vines, to see if they are getting ripe, for 
they are the earliest kind ! How pleasant to see the 
green fig swell ! And when it is ripe I eat it and exclaim, 
* What weather it is ! ' And then I make a drink and 
grate in a little thyme ; and so I grow fat in a summer 
like that. That's more to my taste than to look at an 
accursed sergeant with three crests on his helmet and a 
bright purple cloak, . . . who runs when the fighting 
begins and leaves me in the lurch." And later when, 
after the Peloponnesian war, city life had become the 
almost universal rule, Plato looks back with regret to a 
primitive agricultural life, when men "worked in summer 
stripped and barefoot, but in winter substantially clothed 
and shod. They fed on barley-meal and flour of wheat, 
baking and kneading them, making noble cakes and 
loaves. These they served up on a mat of reeds or on 
clean leaves, themselves reclining the while upon beds 
strewn with yew and myrtle. And they and their 
children feasted, drinking of the wine which they had 
made, wearing garlands on their heads, and hymning 
the praises of the gods in happy converse the one with 
the other." Enough has been said to show that in the 
days of Pericles a considerable number of Athenians 
were employed in agriculture, and that the farmer's life 
always remained an honourable one. 

Trade and commerce were, at Athens, largely in the 
hands of the metics, as we have already said, and no- 
where are they regarded by public opinion as altogether 
honourable occupations. And yet a considerable number 
of Athenians and other Greeks must have been engaged 



Ch. IX.] Society in Greece 215 

in them. The Greek cities of Asia Minor had in the 
sixth century B.C. done most of the carrying trade of the 
^gean. Commercial jealousies are everywhere one of 
the strongest motives to war in Greek history ; it was 
chiefly the jealousy of Athens and Corinth that produced 
the Peloponnesian war. This vigorous and increasing 
commercial life must have brought profit to individuals 
of Athens or Corinth or ^gina as well as to the 
revenues of those states. But the precise information 
that we should like on this subject it seems impossible 
to gain. Solon, we know, was a trader ; the troubles of 
the Solonian period arose partly from the growth of a 
commercial class side by side with the landed aristocracy. 
We find in later periods men of great wealth who did 
not derive it from the land — Cimon and Nicias and 
Alcibiades and Cleon. Clearly after the Peloponnesian 
war a capitalist class rose in Greece, and the equality of 
the democracy was much endangered by it. But what 
proportion of the population of Athens were occupied 
in commercial pursuits we must be content to remain in 
ignorance. Certainly in Athens a very large number 
of citizens were thus employed. For Athens had now 
become the commercial centre of the whole of Greece. 
Her naval strength gave a degree of security to all her 
traders which was possessed by those of no other state. 
The prejudice against trade was not nearly so strong in 
democratic Athens as in other and more oligarchical 
states. Pericles says that no one regarded poverty as a 
disgrace ; but the true disgrace was felt to be the idleness 
that did not attempt to avoid poverty. The eagerness 
with which Athens fostered trade and tried to draw it 
into the Piraeus shows us how profitable it was to her. 
The allies were bound to export certain articles to no 




2 1 6 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. ix. 

other port but the Piraeus. No Athenian was allowed 
to lend money on any vessel that was not bound to 
return with a lading to the Piraeus. And if many of 
the Athenian restrictions upon trade are seen by modern 
observers to be unwise, the desired end was, at any rate, 
secured. Athens became the greatest commercial centre 
in the world. *' The city became more and more the 
centre of the wide seas, and her port the principal market 
into which streamed the wares of all the lands on the 
coast \ where the slaves, the fish, and the skins of the 
Black Sea, the timber of Thrace, the fruit of Euboea, 
the grapes of Rhodes, the wines of the Islands, the 
carpets of Miletus, the ores of Cyprus, the frankincense 
of Syria, the dates of Phoenicia, the papyrus of Egypt, 
the silphium of Cyrene, the delicacies of Sicily, the 
fine shoe-work of Sicyon — in short, all articles of foreign 
as well as native produce were exposed for sale " 
(Curtius). We should like on this subject definite 
statistics and accurate information, but even in the 
absence of these it is plain that it is easy to exaggerate 
the idleness of the Athenian people. 

A still more difficult question is the extent to which 
free Athenian citizens were engaged in handicrafts and 
performed ordinary manual toil. And here again, while 
such work was not the rule among the Athenians and 
was usually relegated to slaves, it is easy to exaggerate 
the contempt of the Athenians for such tasks and their 
freedom from them. It is true that in Athens, as else- 
where in Greece, domestic service and the rougher kinds 
of manual labour were usually performed by slaves. 
But manual labour was not regarded as so degrading by 
the democracy of Athens as in oligarchical states. How 
largely the labour of the farm was performed by freemen 



Ch. IX.] Society in Greece 2 1 7 

has been already mentioned, and certainly in the time 
of Pericles a considerable amount of manual labour in 
the city also fell to their lot. Plutarch alleges that 
one reason why Pericles undertook so many great 
building schemes was to provide work for the handi- 
craftsmen of Athens. The passage is worth quoting in 
this connection. *' It was right, Pericles argued, that 
after the city had provided all that was necessary for 
war, it should devote its surplus money to the erection 
of buildings which would be a glory to it for all ages, 
w^hile these works would create plenty by leaving no one 
unemployed and encouraging all sorts of handicraft. . . . 
As he did not wish the mechanics and lower classes to 
be without their share, nor yet to see them receive it 
without doing work for it, he had laid the foundations of 
great edifices which would require industries of every 
kind to complete them. . . . The different materials 
used, such as stone, brass, ivory, gold, ebony, cypress- 
wood, and so forth, would require special artisans for 
each, such as carpenters, modellers, smiths, stone-masons, 
dyers, melters and moulders of gold, ivory-painters, em- 
broiderers and workers in relief ; and also men to bring 
them to the city, such as sailors and captains of ships 
and pilots for such as came by sea ; and for those who 
came by land, carriage-builders, horse-breeders, drivers, 
rope-makers, linen - manufacturers, shoemakers, road- 
menders, and miners. Each trade, moreover, employed 
a number of unskilled labourers, so that in a word there 
would be work for persons of every age and class." It 
is clear that the workers here alluded to, both skilled 
and unskilled, were citizens, for Pericles would have no 
interest in providing work for voteless slaves or aliens. 
If we think then of the citizens of Periclean Athens, we 



2 1 8 Greece m the Age of Pericles [Ch. IX. 

must modify the view which makes them a race of idlers 
Hving on the tribute of subjects and the work of slaves. 
We must remember that a large proportion were engaged 
in commerce and a considerable number employed in 
handicraft. The roughest work, however, was doubtless 
always performed by slaves. 

But it was the very great number of Athenians who 
received pay directly from the state, whether for services 
rendered or simply as a privilege of citizenship, that gives 
to Athens her most characteristic features. A passage 
from Aristotle has been quoted above (p. 150), giving 
the extraordinary number of citizens living wholly or 
partially on the revenues of the state. He enumerates 
4880 people employed on military or naval duties, and 
7900 employed in civic duties of one sort or another. 
^* Besides these," he adds, " there were the persons main- 
tained in the Prytaneum and orphans and gaolers, since 
all these were supported by the state. In this way the 
people earned their livelihood,'' Clearly many of those 
here alluded to by Aristotle only looked to the state for 
a portion of their livelihood. Of the six thousand jury- 
men mentioned, for instance, none were obliged to attend, 
and the greater part must have regarded their payment 
for jury service merely as a pleasant supplement to other 
means of earning their living. Yet from such a passage 
as this we appreciate best the economical character of 
the Athenian state. The Athenians resemble the share- 
holders of a great company. The citizens of Athens 
manage the Athenian state ; they divide among them- 
selves the income of the state ; but of the labour that 
produces the income they do, broadly speaking, nothing. 
Monarchical, oligarchical, and aristocratic governments 
have often held such a position : the peculiarity of the 



Ch. IX.] Society in Greece 219 

Athenian state is that here we have a democracy living 
principally on the work of others. That fact shows 
us how wide is the gap that separates the Athenian from 
modern democracies. The abundance of leisure time 
enjoyed by the Athenians is a fact always to be remem- 
bered when we are considering the state's artistic and 
literary development. 

The exemption of citizens from hard manual labour 
is doubtless more striking in Athens than elsewhere in 
Greece. It was only possible there because of the large 
tribute annually paid by the subject states, and when the 
Empire fell the continuance of the habit brought Athens 
into very great financial difficulties. There must have 
been many states — Arcadia, Elis, Phocis — where labour 
of some sort was the rule rather than the exception even 
for citizens. But everywhere in the towns the ruling 
race lived upon the labour of others. In Sparta, in 
Corinth, in Megara, the market-place would be full of 
men ready for discussion or gossip, because labour and 
commerce made so few demands upon their time. For 
where the state had no tributary allies, like Athens, she 
had, at any rate, the arms and backs of innumerable 
slaves ; and it is to the position and condition of slaves 
in Greece we turn next. 

Slaves in Greece. 

We noted in the first chapter that one fundamental 
difference between the civilisation of Greece and that of 
the nineteenth century is that the former rested upon the 
basis of slave labour, while the latter rests on free or 
contract labour. Everywhere slaves were very numerous; 
in some places they formed a majority of the population. 
It is calculated that in Corinth there were 460,000 slaves, 



2 20 Greece in the Age of Pej'icles [Ch. ix. 

in ^gina 470,000. The number of slaves in ^gina has 
been estimated at ten times that of the free citizens ; in 
Athens at five times. In Sparta the number of Helots 
must have been very great. In military expeditions they 
always far outnumbered the free troops. At the battle 
of Plataea, where Sparta probably put forth nearly the 
whole of her strength, there were five thousand Spartans 
proper, five thousand free Lacedaemonians, and forty 
thousand Helot troops. Nor was it only upon the main- 
land of Greece that slaves were so numerous. The 
Greek cities of Asia Minor were also full of them. 
Thucydides (viii. 40) specially mentions the Chians as 
having more domestic slaves than any other Greek 
state except Sparta. In fact, wherever we get a glimpse 
of the comparative numbers of the free and slave popula- 
tion in any state, it is evident that the free are surrounded 
by overwhelming masses of slaves. The number of 
slaves was doubtless smaller in the more pastoral dis- 
tricts of Greece, but everywhere was very considerable, 
and forms the most striking contrast between the social 
life of Greece and ours. 

Slavery, then, was universal in Greece, and was uni- 
versally accepted by the conscience and thought of 
Greece. It was recognised indeed as the greatest dis- 
aster to the enslaved. Some of the most pathetic passages 
of the tragedians are on the enslavement of captives 
taken in war. The enslavement of free Athenians 
seemed in the time of Solon an intolerable barbarity • 
and Plato states as an obvious truism that the freeman 
should fear slavery more than he fears death. But of 
any rebellion against slavery as an institution there is 
no trace in Greek writers ; nor indeed in Roman writers 
or in the New Testament. Slavery is not to be abolished 



Ch. IX.] Society in Greece 221 

in Plato's ideal republic ; and Aristotle, though he suggests 
alleviations, regards it as a permanent social factor. It 
will indeed be well to summarise here what Aristotle says 
of slavery in the Politics. 

He bases the institution of slavery, firstly, on the 
necessity of subordination in society \ secondly, on marked 
differences of disposition in men, so that some are 
naturally born to rule and others to be ruled. " Is 
there any one intended by nature to be a slave and for 
whom such a condition is expedient and right, or rather 
is not all slavery a violation of nature ? There is no 
difficulty in answering this question on grounds both 
of reason and of fact. For that some should rule and 
others be ruled is a thing not only necessary, but ex- 
pedient : from the hour of their birth some are marked 
out for subjection, others for rule. ... In all things 
which form a composite whole and which are made up 
of parts, a distinction between the ruling and the subject 
element comes to light. . . . Where, then, there is such 
a difference as that between soul and body or between 
men and animals (as is the case of those whose business 
is to use their body and can do nothing better), the lower 
sort are by nature slaves, and it is better for them, as for 
all inferiors, that they should be under the rule of a 
master. . . . Nature usually distinguishes between the 
bodies of freemen and slaves, making the one strong 
for servile labour, the others upright, and although use- 
less for such services^ useful for political life in the arts 
both of war and peace. But this does not hold uni- 
versally, for some slaves have the souls and others have 
the bodies of freemen. And doubtless, if men differed 
from one another in the mere forms of their bodies as 
much as the statues of gods do from men, all would 



22 2 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. ix. 

acknowledge that the inferior class should be slaves of 
the superior. And if there is a difference in the body, 
how much more in the soul ? But the beauty of the 
body is seen, whereas the beauty of the soul is not seen. 
It is clear then that some men are by nature free and 
others slaves, and that for these latter slavery is both 
expedient and right." Slavery, then, seems to Aristotle 
a normal institution of society ; the position of a slave 
does not seem to him an intolerable one ; he clearly 
recognises the duty of the master to educate and train 
the slave. I have quoted the passage, not so much 
because of its great intrinsic interest, but rather to show 
the attitude towards slavery of one of the greatest and 
most humane of Greek thinkers. 

But while the institution of slavery was accepted, there 
are not wanting instances of attempts to alleviate it or to 
limit the area from which slaves were drawn. Aristotle 
suggests that a prospect of emancipation should be 
possible to any industrious slave. Plato gives it as the 
mark of an ill-bred man to ill-use his slaves ; and asserts 
with emphasis that no Greek should be the slave of 
Greeks. " Do you think it right," he says, '* that 
Hellenes should enslave Hellenic states, or allow others 
to enslave them, if they can help ? Should not their 
custom be to spare them, considering the danger that 
there is that the whole race may one day fall under the 
yoke of the barbarians ? " In Socrates, too, and in Euri- 
pides we find traces of the same movement for a more 
humane treatment of slaves. 

How, as a matter of fact, were slaves treated in the 
days of Pericles ? On the whole there is nothing in 
Greek slavery that need shock us, nothing that need 
make us withdraw our admiration from Greek civilisa- 



Ch. IX.] Society in Greece 223 

tion and its results. Slavery was in Greece usually 
domestic in character, and something quite different 
from the slavery of the Americas that the nineteenth 
century has known. The slave was a member of the 
household. He was in constant relations with his master 
and with the members of his master's house. The con- 
nection between him and his master was not merely one 
of money : it often allowed respect and sympathy and 
even devotion to grow up. It was not in Greece, but in 
Italy, that the ancient world had a foretaste of the planta- 
tion-slavery that the modern world has known. There 
were dangers connected with slavery such as Athens or 
Corinth knew, but nothing compared with the constant 
threat of devastation that the Roman slave-system held 
over the head of the declining RepubHc. The institution 
of Greek slavery gave to the freemen of Greece that 
leisure that was indispensable for any artistic and intellec- 
tual development, and it is doubtful whether anywhere 
else in the world at that time those who worked with 
their hands had a better lot. The slaves themselves 
were not by any means without their share in the culture 
of Greece ; and seeing that Greek slavery allowed so 
much that was good to be produced, and did so little 
harm, we must recognise it as one of the most attractive 
phases in the gradual progress of labour to its just place 
in society. 

There were various methods of obtaining slaves. Some 
were brought from foreign countries. Illyria and Pontus 
are especially mentioned as great centres of the slave 
traffic. But the great source from which the slaves 
came was conquest in war. Many Greek slaves there- 
fore were themselves Greeks, and the bitterness of their 
lot must have been aggravated by memories of recent 



2 24 Greece i7i the Age of Pericles [Ch. ix. 

liberty and power. The treatment of slaves varied much 
from state to state, and was much harsher in oligarchical 
than in democratic states. In his indictment of demo- 
cracy Plato includes the Hberty accorded to slaves. 
" The last extreme of popular liberty is when the slave 
bought with money is as free as his master " ; and the 
Pseudo-Xenophon, in his work on the Athenian republic, 
writing from a Spartan standpoint, laments the licence 
allowed to slaves in Athens. They wore, he tells us, 
no distinguishing dress ; they did not cringe or cross 
to the other side of the street when they met a freeman ; 
they seemed to claim some right to existence. Sparta 
formed a direct contrast to all this. The Helots (who, 
be it remembered, were serfs, not slaves) there were 
kept in the strictest subordination. They w^ore a dif- 
ferent dress from freemen. They were systematically 
submitted to humiliations, whether or no the story be 
true that they were forced to get drunk as a warning 
to the young Spartans. At the beginning of every year, 
we are told, the Ephors declared war against them, so 
that their murder might bring no bloodguiltiness on the 
state. A system of secret police was organised specially to 
watch over them, and any that were suspected of plotting 
against the state were assassinated without compunction. 
The Athenian democracy was capable of sudden out- 
bursts of great cruelty, but, as a whole, it was character- 
ised by a humanity very much in advance of the age. 

Of the slaves of Athens we may certainly say that 
their material condition, and probably their standard of 
culture, were better than those of great masses of wage- 
earners in Europe and even in England to-day. But 
there were terrible possibilities in the life of a slave. 
He must always be tortured before he gave evidence in 



Ch. IX.] Society hi Greece 225 

a trial at law. This was not an inducement to those 
unwilling to speak, but a necessary accompaniment of the 
evidence of all slaves. Mr. Mahaffy calls this the only 
instance of stupidity in the life of the Greeks. And 
Greek slavery might become a very terrible thing when 
it lost its domestic character, and when the slaves were 
employed in great numbers in some remote place and 
regarded merely as animate tools. It was under such 
circumstances that slavery in Rome assumed so terrible 
an appearance and became so great a danger. For- 
tunately for Greece the industries were so little developed, 
and the farming was on so small a scale, that large aggre- 
gates of slaves in remote localities were avoided. But 
one such instance, of which we have some record, is to 
be found in the mines of Mount Laurium. Silver and 
tin were obtained from these mines, and the fumes of 
the operations were particularly deadly. The mines were 
worked by Sosias, a Thracian, and the slaves were hired 
from Nicias of Athens. They had only five holidays in 
the year, and how deadly the work was is clear from the 
fact that Sosias paid for the slaves a rent equal to half 
their value. If they lived three years, Nicias would make 
50 per cent, profit. It seems clear that life for a slave in 
the mines was not much longer than that of a tram-horse 
to-day, and was probably as little considered. 

The usual effects of slavery upon any society where 
it may be found are, first, to render the basis of society 
unstable, and, secondly, to make all manual labour 
dishonourable, for what slaves do is no fit occupation 
for freemen. The second effect we may mark to the full 
in Greece. Even the great sculptors seem to have been 
held in no very high estimation, on the ground that they 
were handicraftsmen. But the first-mentioned result of 

15 



2 26 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. ix. 

slavery was not nearly so strongly felt as in most other 
countries where slavery has existed. The labour-basis 
of society was indeed, perhaps, more stable in Greece 
than it is in Europe in the nineteenth century. Yet the 
danger of having in the state vast numbers of men who 
participated only indirectly in the benefits of the state, 
was often severely felt. This was, as we should expect, 
especially the case in Sparta. Much in their social 
institutions can only be explained by the fact that they 
were constantly exerting themselves to maintain their 
supremacy over the Helots. Once, as we have already 
seen, a revolt of Helots almost brought Sparta to her 
knees (464), and during the Peloponnesian war this was 
the great danger that Sparta feared, more even than the 
arms of Athens. At Athens, under normal circum- 
stances, we do not find the same danger ; but when 
famine began to press upon Athens towards the end of 
the Peloponnesian war, many thousands of slaves deserted 
to Sparta, and Plato in the Republic asserts that even at 
Athens it was only fear that kept them from rising against 
their masters. It is clear then that the mild form of 
slavery that prevailed in Greece had its difficulties and 
dangers. That the dangers were not greater is due, at 
any rate in part, to the humane character of the Greek 
people. 

The Position of "Women in Greece. 

When we come from the position of slaves to the posi- 
tion of women in Greece, the same sort of difficulty meets 
us. They were an entirely subordinate portion of the 
state ; they had little share in the life of Greece, and 
therefore they are so far disregarded by historians that 
it is impossible to get the full information about them 



Cn. IX.] Society in Greece 227 

that we should like. But from all that we know about 
them, this seems plain, that their position was very much 
more unsatisfactory than the position of slaves, and did 
not tend as time went on to get any better. For the 
position of Greek slaves shows us very little that we can 
condemn, upon a fair review of the circumstances of 
the time, and endangered the state surprisingly little. 
But the position and treatment of women is worse than 
we might reasonably have hoped to find, and if it did 
not actually endanger the state, deprived it of what has 
been in most strong states a great element of strength. 

The freedom and influence of women in Greece seem 
to have been greater in earlier ages than in later ; greater 
in the less-advanced states than in those more fully 
developed. We may not treat the poems of Homer as 
though they were a delineation of a civilisation actually 
existing; yet the reader of Homer cannot help feeling 
that the women contemporary with him had a better lot 
than those who lived in Periclean Athens. Technically 
their condition is one almost of servitude. Slavery 
awaits the prisoners of war even of the highest rank ; 
even free women are completely subject to the male 
head of the family. Yet how striking are the female 
figures that appear in the pages of Homer ! Helen and 
Nausicaa and Penelope, each in their different way, are 
the very types of the fascination of beauty and the 
simple charm of maidenhood and the constancy of 
married love. And female influence is strong through- 
out both the Iliad and the Odyssey. The Trojan war is 
fought for a woman ; Achilles' wrath is for a woman who 
has been torn from him ; the leading motive of the 
Odyssey is the constant love of Ulysses for his wife 
Penelope. Again in Herodotus we find women still 



22 8 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. ix. 

playing an important part, and in his pages again and 
again we come upon important female influence. But if 
we pass to Thucydides — the representative historian of 
the Periclean period — we find we are in an exclusively 
male w^orld ; only twice is a w^oman's name mentioned, 
and then only as being the mother of a prom.inent 
character or the priestess of a goddess. It is pretty 
clear that the progress of Greek thought and civilisation 
brought increased restrictions and limitations to the 
women of Greece. 

It is equally clear that the position of w^omen was 
better in the less-advanced states of Greece than in 
cities such as Corinth or Athens. The almost Oriental 
seclusion of Athenian women has been hinted at already, 
and will be treated of in more detail later on. There 
was nothing in the least resembling this system in 
Sparta. There, as has been shown in the second 
chapter, the Spartan discipline gave to those who w^ere 
destined to be ''the mothers and mates" of soldiers a 
position of remarkable freedom and influence. They 
underw^ent an athletic discipline : they mixed freely with 
the men wathout any false modesty ; their influence in 
the state was always considerable, and is stated, in the 
later period of Sparta's history, to have become too great. 
The rude health of Spartan women was famed through- 
out Greece, and everywhere they were in request as 
nurses. We have scarcely any detailed information of 
the position of women in the less-known states of Greece ; 
but everything seems to show that where life was most 
pastoral, there women were most free ; where the popula- 
tion was aggregated into towns, there at once restrictions 
were placed upon them. 

The position of women in Athens must be considered 



Ch. IX.] Society in Greece 229 

more in detail. Whatever their earher position may 

have been, they are, when we see them in the age of 

Pericles, surrounded by restrictions of the closest kind. 

They live in separate apartments, usually in the upper 

part of the house. They very rarely went out of the 

house. If we look into the agora or the streets of 

Athens, we see very few women, if any ; probably none 

of free citizen origin. No education seems to have been 

given them. It is possible that the wife of Sophocles or 

Phidias could neither read nor write. The intellectual 

life of Athens was not for them. The philosophical 

movement of the time did not touch them. The theatre 

was so intimately connected with religion that its doors 

could not be entirely closed against them ; but they were 

only allowed to be present at the tragedies. The 

comedies were performed before an exclusively male 

audience. The women who have an influence on 

Athenian history are not married women. The wives 

and mothers of the great men of Athens are, for the 

most part, names only, to which we can attach no 

character at all. 

The marriage relationship at Athens was extremely 
unsatisfactory. Almost always the husband was very 
much older than the wife. Aristotle suggests as the 
proper age for marriage thirty-five for the man and 
eighteen for the woman. It follows that the idea 
of intellectual companionship was excluded from the 
Athenian marriage. The matter was arranged by the 
parents, and the married couple often had not seen one 
another before the ceremony of betrothal. In all the 
utterances of practical men concerning marriage we 
nowhere hear of mutual affection as the main condition 
of success. Marriage is a duty to the state and a duty 



230 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. IX. 

to the family, an affair of religion and of patriotism, but 
not of individual happiness. And the result was that 
romantic passion, as we know it, was hardly ever found 
in marriage. A pleader says, as though he were stating 
a truism, '' We have female companions for our pleasures, 
concubines for daily attendance on our persons, but 
wives in order that we may beget legitimate children, and 
that we may have a faithful guardian of our households." 
And if we would complete our picture of Athenian life, 
we must remember the large number of courtesans 
{HetcBrce)^ who enjoyed a better education than citizen 
women and were more skilled in the arts of pleasing, and 
whose position, though not regarded as respectable, was 
at any rate fully accepted by the morality and convention 
of the time. If anything is to be learnt from history, it 
is certain that such a condition of things must degrade 
the moral and weaken the social life of a state ; but the 
partial recognition which was given to them in x\thens 
allowed the ffetcerce themselves to escape the debase- 
ment that is their lot in modern societies. There were 
doubtless many in Greece who had something of the 
character and ability of Aspasia. 

Between husband and wife the tie was weak and easily 
broken. The wife never entered wholly into the family 
of her husband. A wife's legal guardian was not her 
husband, but her father or brother; the legal tie with 
her own family was much stronger than that with her 
husband's In all marriage contracts the dowry seems 
the affair of most importance. It does not become the 
husband's absolute property, and in case of divorce must 
])e restored to his wife. The whole life of the wife after 
marriage was within doors. Beyond the threshold indeed 
she was rarely seen. To rear up children and to attend 



Ch. IX.] Society in Greece 231 

to the house was the whole duty of woman ; and how- 
ever lax the moral ideas of Greece may have been about 
the conduct of men, they were sufficiently strict when 
they referred to wives and daughters. 

Enough has been said to indicate the condition of 
almost Oriental seclusion and subordination in which 
Athenian women lived. The two chief reasons for that 
condition are probably to be found in the growth of city 
life and the contact between Greece and the states of 
the East. There is doubtless some danger of exaggera- 
tion. There must have been many exceptions to the 
rule, many instances of tender affection between wife 
and husband. The story of Ulysses and Penelope can 
hardly have been told and admired for generations with- 
out producing some results in the practice of life. The 
tragedians tell us stories of romantic love, and show us 
almost the highest types of female character; though it is 
noteworthy that none of the heroines, even of legend and 
mythology, are Athenian. But to show that even under 
Athenian conditions women could have influence and 
sometimes claim a measure of freedom, let these stories, 
the one from Plutarch, the other from Herodotus, suffice. 
Plutarch tells us of Themistocles that " his son was 
spoiled by his mother, and by himself to please her. 
Themistocles used to say that his son was the most 
powerful person in Greece : for the Athenians ruled 
Greece, and he ruled the Athenians, and his wife ruled 
him, and his son ruled his wife." And in the sixth book 
of Herodotus we find the following : " Callias was remark- 
able for his conduct in respect to his daughters, for when 
they came to marriageable ages he gave to each of them 
a most ample dowry and placed it at their own disposal, 
allowing them to choose their husbands from among all 



232 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. IX. 

the citizens of Athens, and giving each in marriage to the 
man of her own choice." But that such influence in a 
wife and such liberty of choice should be mentioned at 
all shows that they were exceptions to a general rule. 

It is certain too that there was in Athens much thought 
upon the question of the proper position of women. 
Clearly Aspasia's circle was not satisfied with the semi- 
slavery of the Athenian wife. And in the great tragedians, 
where most of the highest aspirations of Greece are to be 
found, we find constantly complaints of the destiny that 
is allotted to women. A fragment of the Tereus of 
Sophocles has been preserved, in which a female character 
speaks as follows: ^^ Often have I thought thus concern- 
ing the nature of women — that we are naught. In our 
childhood, in our home, we have, I think, the sweetest 
possible life, for our thoughtlessness allows us to grow 
up happily. But when w^e arrive at maidenhood we are 
thrust out of doors, and sold as merchandise far away 
from our household gods and our parents. And some 
go to the house of strangers and some of barbarians. 
And to this we must agree, and pretend to think that 
all is well." And into the mouth of Medea Euripides 
places the fiercest denunciation of the lot of an Athenian 
woman [Medea^ 230 sqq,), 

*' Of all things that have life 
And sense, we women are most wretched ; first 
With all our dearest treasures we must buy 
A husband, and in him receive a lord. 
A hardship this : a greater hardship yet 
Awaits us. Here's the question, if the lord 
Prove gentle or a tyrant : if the worst, 
To disunite our nuptials hurts our fame, 
Nor from the husband may our sex withdraw 
The plighted hand. . . . 



Ch. IX.] Society in Greece 233 

If all our care 
Gives us a gentle husband, one that binds 
No galling yoke, happy our life indeed. 
If not, death were more welcome. . . . 

Yet will they say 
We live an easy life at home, secure 
From danger whilst they lift the spear in war. 
Misjudging men ! Thrice would I stand in arms 
On the rough edge of battle, ere once bear 
The pangs of child-birth." 

And lastly, Plato shows us in his Republic how deeply 
he was dissatisfied with the position of women, how 
clearly he saw the necessity of the greatest changes. His 
actual proposals are indeed the strangest possible, and 
are aimed at the total annihilation of the family. His 
statement that the highest intellect among women is 
only equal to that of a second-rate man, has made him 
seem to some a contemner of women. But the really 
striking thing about his proposals, if viewed by the light 
of contemporary social conditions, is his demand for a 
fuller education, physical and mental, for women, his 
claim that women shall not be excluded from the life 
of the state. 

But in these criticisms the great minds of Athens do 
not seem to have been at all representative of general 
Athenian feeling. The position of women did not 
improve, and probably with the decay of Greek ** morale '* 
grew somewhat worse. The weakness of the family 
bond is certainly a most noticeable feature in Greek 
history. To this is partly due the lack of cohesion that 
we observe in the Greek state. 

The Characteristics of the Greeks. 
It is an extremely difficult task to estimate the cha- 
racteristics of any people : witness the verdicts of modern 



2 34 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. ix. 

European nations on one another. The difficulty is less 
with a people separated from us by so wide a gap as the 
Greeks. But there is a great difficulty even here. For 
many sides of the civilisation of Greece are of such trans- 
cendent beauty, and are so very attractive to those who 
are capable of valuing character and culture and art, that 
our eyes are dazzled and we fail to note the spots in the 
sun. It has been well said that when Greece is being 
tried, she, like Phryne of old, has merely to unveil her 
beauty and condemnation is impossible. But surely it 
is worth while attempting to distinguish the tasks that 
Greece performed admirably from those which she failed 
in or performed with only partial success, and, in no 
carping spirit, to show in what qualities the national life 
of Greece was deficient as well as those in which it 
excelled. And here even more than elsewhere we must 
look mainly at Athens as by far the most important 
state of Greece. 

It is evident then, I think, to any one who stands upon 
any vantage ground from which it is possible to survey 
universal history, that the practical life of the Greeks was 
not their great success, that they excelled neither in politics 
nor war. We see, and many of the greatest Greeks them- 
selves saw, clearly enough how great was the danger of 
overthrow at the hands of barbarians, how paramount was 
the necessity of Hellenic unity. They could see the goal, 
but they could not reach it. The attempt was made both 
by conciliatory and by violent methods ; but with failure 
as the result in both cases. No state was patriotic enough 
to sink its own egoistic desires in the interest of Hellas ; 
no state was strong enough to coerce the others into com- 
plete obedience. Divided against herself, Hellas became 
an easy prey for the first strong invader. Nor in domestic 



Ch. IX.] Society in Greece 235 

politics can the triumphs of the Greeks be rated very 
highly. Their political experiments are full of interest, 
and occasionally of value ; but rather as warnings than 
examples. Oligarchies and democracies pursued equally 
narrowly selfish ends. And in the democracy of Athens 
the chief object seems rather to have been the satisfaction 
of some feeling than the accomplishment of some task. 
Viewed as an instrument of administration and govern- 
ment, the democracy of Athens must be written down a 
failure ; and during its period of success the real character 
of the democracy was obscured by the ascendency of 
Pericles. Doubtless many other governments, perhaps 
most other governments, have been as weak as those of 
the Greek states. But their achievement does not allow 
us to class Greece with the Romans, or the republic of 
Venice or France or England, as a nation that has given 
to the world political precedents of permanent importance. 
It was left to Rome to give, by her arms and her high 
public spirit, a stable basis to the civilisation that she 
received from Greece. 

The Greeks are further alleged to have been deficient 
upon the moral side ; to have fallen short of a high 
standard of honesty, truthfulness, and courage ; and, 
further, to have been a cruel people. A modern writer 
is never weary of contrasting the Greeks and their 
love for beauty and knowledge with the Hebrews and 
their sense of the importance of conduct. And a portion 
of the indictment is surely true, though liable to great 
exaggeration. The great moral movements of the world 
have hardly ever taken place without at least temporary 
damage or eclipse to thought and art. It is almost what 
we should have expected if the enormous artistic and 
intellectual advance made by Greece was accompanied 



236 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. IX. 

by some moral aberration. But again how far advanced 
Greece was is proved by the fact that in these criticisms 
the highest standards of the nineteenth century are ap- 
pHed to a people who lived in the fifth century B.C. With 
this proviso, we may admit that the standard of honesty 
and truthfulness in Greece was not high. Whether we 
look to their poHtical life or to their extant law pleadings, 
we find a marked absence of any strict sense of upright- 
ness, such, for instance, as marked the Romans until the 
Republic began to decay. How rare pecuniary honesty 
was we may see by the influence which was possessed 
by such politicians as had not the itching palm for that 
reason alone. From the legal system of a nation we 
usually get a good idea of the characteristics of a nation, 
and certainly not the sole object, hardly the main object, 
of the Athenian jury system is the discovery of truth. 
We have admitted too in a previous chapter that the 
courage of the Greeks had limits. They were good 
soldiers ; the European world had not at that time 
known better; but, as a race, they resisted discipline 
and were liable to panic. It may be suggested that 
their imagination was too vivid to allow of the stolid 
courage of the Romans and of the German races. 
The charge of cruelty it seems impossible to admit. 
There are doubtless instances of horrible barbarity in 
the history of Greece. What nation's history is with- 
out them ? They did things which no civilised nation 
of the nineteenth century would do. But it may be 
doubted whether Englishmen of the sixteenth, seven- 
teenth, or eighteenth centuries were more humane than 
the Greeks. Rathlin Island and Drogheda and Culloden 
are not names of much pleasantcr memories than Melos 
or Mitylene or ^Jgina. 



Ch. IX.] Society in Greece .237 

The greatness of Greece is to be found, not on the 
practical, but upon the speculative and artistic side of 
human life. Other nations and not they have been the 
pioneers of mankind in politics, in social organisation, 
and in war. But to the world's permanent fund of truth 
and beauty the Greeks have contributed more than any 
nation, ancient or modern. And as a people they were 
characterised, above all peoples of which w^e know any- 
thing, by artistic sensibility and intellectual activity. If 
we may not call the Greeks a nation of artists, we must 
insist that the artistic triumphs of Greece could not have 
been achieved without a wide appreciation and love for 
beautiful things among the people. The dramas of 
Athens w^ere her greatest artistic achievement ; and a 
great drama presupposes an audience capable of appre- 
ciating it. The Greek people want no higher testimonial 
of artistic receptivity than the popularity of ^schylus, 
Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes. And the 
same thing applies, though not quite so strongly, to their 
sculpture and architecture. They w^ere state works ; 
they were carried out by means of public money, which 
might have found its way into the pockets of the citizens. 
They consented to forgo a direct pecuniary advantage 
that their city might be beautiful. Imagine an English 
city submitting to a rate such as would have been 
required in Athens to decorate the Acropolis ! And the 
same keen sense for beauty comes out in other w^ays. At 
no time probably has mere personal beauty been rated 
so high as among the Greeks of the fifth century B.C. ; 
as evidence let this quotation from Herodotus suffice : 
"This Philip was an Olympian victor, and the hand- 
somest Greek of his day. His beauty gained him 
honours at the hands of the Egestaeans which they 



238 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. ix. 

never accorded to any one else ; for they raised a hero 
temple over his grave, and they still worship him with 
sacrifices." 

Their intellectual activity is so obvious that few words 
are necessary. Sir Henry Maine, who was not given 
to superlatives, has said, '' Except the blind forces of 
nature, nothing 7noves in this world that is not Greek in 
its origin '' ; and if there be some exaggeration in this, it 
is true that the first steps in nearly every branch of 
science or thought or art w^ere worthily taken by the 
Greeks. And again the glory belongs to the race, as 
well as to a few eminent men of genius. Their dramas, 
their political and forensic speeches, and the origin of 
their philosophy, all show the keen intellect of the 
Athenian people. The intellect of Athens needs no 
higher praise than that large popular audiences listened 
with delight to the choruses of the plays of ^schylus, 
the orations of Pericles and Demosthenes, and the keen 
disputation of Socrates. I have insisted, both in this 
chapter and elsewhere, on the darker side of Greek 
character and Greek civiHsation. It is certain that their 
moral development, to say the least of it, did not keep 
pace with the intellectual. It is certain that at the root 
of their society there was poison which was bound 
ultimately to destroy it. But while it lasted surely 
civilisation never bore a fairer blossom. 

Note. — It is difficult to give any useful reference in this chapter. 
For the whole subject, however, clearly marked views will be found 
in Mahaffy's Social Life in Greece. There are two articles in the 
Contemporary Review by Mr. Donaldson on '' The Position of 
Women in Ancient Greece" (Nos. 32, 34). I cannot find any full 
treatment of the condition of Greek slaves in English, but some- 
thing will be found in Mahafify, and much that is very valuable 
in Aristotle's Politics. The translation in this chapter is Jowett's, 




Athens from the Gardens of the Academy near Colonus. 



CHAPTER X. 



THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR TO THE DEATH OF PERICLES. 



Herodotus, towards the end of his work, which was' 
composed in Thurii in Italy at the beginning of the 
Peloponnesian war, writes : *' A civil war is as much 
worse than a foreign war as war itself is worse than 
peace." The words must have some reference to the 
struggle that had just begun. The outbreak of that war 
must have been a terrible blow to the Panhellenic 
patriotism of Herodotus. The end, if he had lived to 
see it, would perhaps have seemed to make the Persian 
war a fruitless victory. 

From 445 ^^ 43 2 Greece as a whole enjoyed a period 
of peace. Not that arms were altogether silent for those 
thirteen years, but the struggles were of an entirely 

239 



240 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. x. 

local character, and hardly noticeable to men who looked 
back on them with memories full of the Peloponnesian 
war. All previous struggleslead up to that, and in that 
struggle the political doom of Hellas is sealed. I shall 
here resume the thread of the narrative that has been 
interrupted by an exposition of the internal condition of 
Athens, and, going back to the year 445, the year of the 
thirty years' truce, explain how the great struggle came 
upon Greece. 

That war, not peace, was the chronic relation of the 
Greek states is shown by the fact that their peaces and 
truces were made for a specific number of years, after 
which war would come again unless the truces were pro- 
longed. But in the case of the thirty years' truce the 
motives to war were too strong to allow it even to run 
out. The influences that made for war were mainly the 
three following : — 

1. The great prestige of Athens necessarily aroused 
the fierce jealousy of Sparta. The year 445 had marked 
indeed the definite abandonment of all schemes for a 
land-empire ; but the loss of power on the mainland had 
not been a real loss of power to Athens. Her empire 
had increased and solidified ; her naval supremacy was 
more unquestionable than ever. No other Greek state 
had nearly the wealth that Athens possessed in her 
treasury. And added to all this was the intellectual 
and artistic glory of Athens. Here alone was a sufficient 
cause for the outbreak of war. The eighteenth century 
of our own era declared war when the balance of power 
was upset, and we can therefore hardly wonder that in 
ancient Greece Sparta could not endure to see her old 
supremacy in Hellas successfully challenged. 

2. Sparta was capable of bitter, sulky hatred, but not 



Ch. X.] Peloponnesian War to Death of Pericles 241 

of fierce and rapid action. It was this temper of the 
Spartan state that prevented her from^ being a worthy 
leader of the Peloponnesian states that belonged to her 
alliance. But that alliance numbered other states equally 
irritated, and more capable of expressing their irritation 
in action. Since Megara had given the coup de grace to 
the Athenian land-empire by her revolt, a decree of the 
Athenian people had excluded her from their markets 
and reduced her to a condition of miserable poverty. If 
any chance came to free her from her fetters and avenge 
the insult, she would not be found wanting. Equally 
bitter, and much more powerful, was the state of Corinth. 
She had been the first commercial state in Greece at a 
time when Athens had not yet mastered Salamis. She 
had invented the war-ship, the trireme, which had now 
become the main instrument of the greatness of Athens. 
Her position upon the Isthmus had given her great 
advantages for trade, and she had made full use of 
them. A vast slave population ministered to her wants 
at home and abroad. At Corinth probably life was 
more luxurious and more unhealthy in its social con- 
ditions than elsewhere in Greece. This state now found 
herself hemmed in by the growth of Athenian power, 
^gina and Salamis closed her in upon the east, and 
both islands were now in the hands of Athens. And 
upon the west, in the narrowest part of the Corinthian 
Gulf, at Naupactus, the Athenians had settled the 
Messenians who had revolted against Sparta in the year 
464, when the earthquake laid Sparta in ruins. These 
men hated the Spartans and their allies more than the 
Athenians themselves. They lacked neither enterprise 
nor courage, and Corinthian vessels could hardly feel 
safe until they had passed this robbers' stronghold and 

16 



242 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. x. 

reached the broader waters of the Adriatic. I have 
said elsewhere that competition between individuals of 
the same state was smaller, but between different states 
keener, in the ancient than in the modern world. We 
need no evidence therefore to tell us how Corinth longed 
to do to Athens all that Athens had done to .^gina. Of 
herself Corinth could not act against the overwhelming 
forces of Athens ; but she was the most important ally 
of Sparta, and might hope to influence the action of the 
Spartan alliance. We shall see shortly how her chance 
came and how she used it. 

3. Lastly, as a permanent cause of unrest and jealousy 
there was the Athenian Empire. We have examined its 
character elsewhere, and seen that, despite injustice and 
some oppression, it was an experiment full of interest 
and promise. But it is subsequent history that allows us 
to think so. To contemporaries it was only clear that 
Greek states that had once been free were so no longer ; 
that their subjection was accompanied with every mark 
of humiliation — the payment of tribute, the destruction 
of fortresses, often the presence of an Athenian garrison 
and Athenian settlers. There were many other cities 
in Greece that were not free — the cities of Messenia, for 
instance, and those that in Boeotia owned the supremacy 
of Thebes. i\nd the free allies of Sparta would no more 
be allowed to revolt than Athens had allowed such action 
in the islands of the ^gean. But the subjection of all 
these cities was either softened by long duration or at 
least not emphasised by tribute and garrisons ; so that 
neither Thebes nor Sparta outraged Greek sentiment at 
all in the way that Athens did. Thus inside the Athenian 
alliance there was constant friction and anxiety to rebel, 
and the enemies of Athens knew that, if they attacked 



Ch. X.] Peloponnesian War to Death of Pericles 243 

her, many of her alHes would either revolt or render her 
grudging assistance. 

Thus were laid the materials for a conflagration, and 
in 434 there came an event which soon set all ablaze. 



The Quarrel between Coreyra and Corinth, and 
the Interference of Athens. 

The conflagration began on the extreme rim of the 
circle of Hellas. Coreyra (the modern Corfu) had 
hitherto stood aloof from the politics of Central Greece. 
And she was wise in doing so. She formed the halfway 
house between Greece proper and the Greek settlements 
in Sicily and Italy, for it was the custom of Greek sailors 
to coast up as far as Coreyra, and then strike across the 
Adriatic Sea for the Italian coast. And her situation 
and neutral attitude had given her great opportunities 
of trading. At the time of the outbreak of the 
Peloponnesian war, they were " as rich as any state then 
existing in Hellas." So strong was their navy, so large 
their commerce, that their claim to be descended from 
the legendary Phaeacians did not seem an arrogant one. 

Coreyra was a colony of Corinth, and Epidamnus, upon 
the mainland opposite, was a joint colony of Coreyra and 
Corinth, the settlers being mostly Corcyraeans and the 
individual founder a Corinthian. But in this family of 
colonies bitter feuds had broken out. Each was of course 
a quite independent state ; but Greek feeling demanded 
that the mother colony should be honoured by the 
daughter in certain matters of ceremony. This honour 
Coreyra had refused to the Corinthians. *'At their 
sacrifices they denied to a Corinthian the right of receiv- 
ing first the lock of hair cut from the head of the victim." 



244 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. X. 

They were as rich as Corinth, and believed their naval 
power to be as strong. Between them there was chronic 
feud. And now a bitter quarrel broke out between 
Corcyra and Epidamnus. In the latter town, as every- 
where in Greece, there were two parties, the oligarchs 
and the democrats. The oligarchs were expelled from 
the city, and appealed for restoration to Corcyra; but 
there the democratic party was the stronger, and would 
render them no help. They turned to Corinth, and the 
Corinthians eagerly seized the opportunity of paying off 
their old grudge against Corcyra. They sent a consider- 
able expedition, which easily forced an entry with the 
oligarchs at their head. The Corcyraeans were enraged 
and immediately blockaded Epidamnus, and seemed likely 
to capture the town and take prisoner the Corinthian 
armament. The Corinthians manned a relief expedition, 
and so Corcyra and Corinth were at open war. 

Out of this quarrel, which must have had many 
counterparts in Greek history that have been forgotten, 
arose the great Peloponnesian war. For when the 
Corinthian and Corcyraean navies met, the former were 
easily defeated, and soon after Epidamnus surrendered. 
Then the Corinthians began to prepare an expedition on 
a much greater scale. They built many ships, and they 
offered high pay for rowers from any part of Hellas. The 
Corcyraeans felt themselves unable to resist so great a 
danger without assistance. It has already been noted 
that they had not hitherto joined either the Athenian or 
the Spartan alliance. But now they decided to abandon 
their neutrality. The Spartan alliance was of course 
closed against them, for Corinth was, next to Sparta, its 
most important member. They therefore appealed to 
Athens. 



Ch. X.] Peloponnesian War to Death of Pericles 245 

The crisis was a very serious one. The thirty years' 
truce did indeed expressly say that any Hellenic city 
which had not yet entered either alliance might join which 
it liked. It was, therefore, technically open to Athens 
to accept the offer of Corcyra. But whatever the letter 
of the treaty might say, no one could really doubt that 
if Athens admitted Corcyra into her alliance, it would 
be a step, and a great step, towards war with Sparta and 
her allies. The boldest might well shrink before such a 
danger. x\nd yet if. war was to come — and most people 
believed that it would come sooner or later — the whole 
result might depend on the decision of this question. If 
Corcyra were admitted, her navy, the third and perhaps 
the second in Hellas, joined to the Athenian, would make 
resistance upon the sea impossible. If Corcyra were not 
admitted, sooner or later she would yield to Corinth, and 
the Corcyraean navy, joined to the navy that Corinth and 
the rest of the allies of Sparta could put upon the waters, 
would offer a resistance to Athens of uncertain issue. 
The question seemed to narrow itself down to this : 
whether Athens should fight at an early date with an 
overwhelming naval supremacy, or somewhat later with 
naval superiority doubtfully on her side. The matter 
was brought before the general assembly. Envoys from 
both Corinth and Corcyra appeared before the Athenian 
people. A single day was not sufficient for the debate. 
On the second day, after some wavering, the vote was 
given for a defensive alliance with Corcyra. "They 
knew," says Thucydides, " that in any case war with 
Peloponnesus was inevitable, and they had no mind to 
let Corcyra and her navy fall into the hands of the 
Corinthians." 

The decision soon brought about a colHsion. In 



246 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. x. 

accordance with the vote, Athens despatched ships to 
the assistance of Corcyra, with strict orders to stand only 
on the defensive, for an attack upon Corinth would show 
that the thirty years' truce was broken. And thus, shortly 
afterwards (432), a great naval engagement took place 
near Corcyra. Never before had so many Greek ships 
fought together. The Athenian squadron at first took 
no part in the battle ; they confined themselves to render- 
ing assistance to such Corcyrsean ships as w^ere being 
hard pressed by the enemy. On the whole, fortune 
favoured the Corinthians. It was only the resolute 
intervention of the Athenians that saved the Corcyraeans 
from a severe defeat. The contest was not yet fully 
decided when some fresh ships were observed on the 
horizon by the Corinthians, who suspected them to be 
a reinforcement from Athens, and therefore drew off. 
They were justified in their suspicions, for twenty sail from 
Athens joined the Corcyraean navy during the following 
night. The reinforcement was not large, but so great 
was the superiority of Athens over the enemy in all that 
concerned naval warfare, that next day the Corinthians, 
though they claimed victory in the late battle, gladly 
received from the Athenian ships an engagement to 
remain strictly on the defensive, and sailed home. 

If Corinth had hated Athens before, what were her 
feelings now ! She sought revenge for her humiliation 
in every direction. To set the great war ablaze was her 
chief object; in the meanwhile, and as a step to that, she 
raised up a rebellion against Athens in a distant quarter. 
The town of Potidsea, situated on the isthmus of Pallene 
in Chalcidice, was a colony of Corinth, and was con- 
nected with her by more than the ordinary bonds of 
ceremonious affection. She received, we are told, magi- 



Ch. X.] Peloponnesian War to Death of Pericles 247 

strates from Corinth every year. But the whole ^^gean 
Sea was in the hands of Athens, and willingly or un- 
willingly Potidoea had become a member of the Athenian 
Empire. Like most of the other "allied" states, she 
chafed at the yoke, and looked round for opportunities of 
revolt. The Athenians were suspicious of her intentions, 
and ordered her to raze one side of her fortifications 
and give hostages for good conduct. The Potidaeans 
sought for assistance in resisting the demand, and readily 
found it. The Corinthians promised to assist them to 
the uttermost ; an embassy went to Sparta and received 
a promise that if the Athenians besieged Potidsea the 
Spartans would invade Attica. For such a promise 
there was no justification in the thirty years' truce, for 
there it had been expressly stipulated that the head 
of each alliance should be allowed to punish its own 
members. Yet the promise is thoroughly characteristic 
of Spartan diplomacy ; and it is characteristic too that 
they did not keep it. Potidaea revolted ; the Corinthians 
sent assistance, and help too came from the neighbour- 
ing Macedonians ; but the Athenians drove in their 
opponents and blockaded the town. Unless help came 
its fall was certain. All the efforts of Corinth had only 
made her smart under a further blow ; and unless Sparta 
could be stirred into action, other such blows would 
follow. 

The Debates on the Question of War. 

The Spartan confederacy included all the states of 
the Peloponnese except Achaea and Argos, and many 
states in the centre of Greece. The Spartans were fond 
of contrasting the voluntary nature of their own con- 
federacy with the oppressive empire of Athens, but 



2^8 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. x. 

secessions from the first would have been permitted as 
little as from the second. Still a greater appearance of 
liberty was given by the fact that the allies of Sparta 
gave their contributions in personal service, not in 
money, and, being constantly under arms, were not so 
powerless to resist as the allies of Athens. From Sparta 
came the initiative in all questions that concerned the 
whole alliance, but no action could be taken until the 
decision of Sparta had been ratified by a meeting of 
the allies. 

And now a meeting was called at Sparta to consider 
the question of war or peace with Athens. The Cor- 
inthian ambassadors w^ere there ; from Megara came 
bitter complaints of the exclusive mercantile policy of 
Athens; from ^gina secret promises of revolt. The 
spokesmen of the various states were called before 
the general Spartan assembly. Athenians accidentally 
present in Sparta defended their own state. The 
debate was closed by speeches from the Spartans 
themselves. It was one of the most important ever 
known in Greece, and Thucydides has given us a full 
account of it. We must not indeed accept the speeches 
that he gives as a verbal report of what was actually 
said, but we- may regard them as pretty closely repre- 
senting the line of argument adopted by the various 
speakers. The speech of the Corinthian envoys is 
in every way the most important. It contains no 
argument on the justice of the war, but boils over with 
indignant protest against the slackness of the Spartans 
and bitter invective against the Athenians. The con- 
trast they draw between the Athenians and Spartans 
deserves a brief quotation. " The Athenians are revo- 
lutionary — equally quick in the conception and in the 



Ch. X.] Peloponnesian War to Death of Pericles 249 

execution of every new plan ; while you are conservative 
— careful only to keep what you have, originating no- 
thing, and not acting even when action is most necessary. 
They are bold beyond their strength ; they run risks 
which prudence would condemn, and in the midst of 
misfortune they are full of hope. Whereas it is your 
nature, though strong, to act feebly ; when your plans 
are most prudent to distrust them ; and when calamities 
come upon you to think you will never be delivered from 
them. They are impetuous and you are dilatory ; they 
are always abroad and you are always at home. . . . 
When conquerors they pursue their victory to the 
utmost ; when defeated they fall back the least. . . . 
If a man should say of them, in a word, that they were 
born neither to have peace themselves nor to allow 
peace to other men, he would simply speak the truth." 
To all this rhetoric the Athenians seem to have answered 
in a cooler strain. They called to memory their great 
deeds against the Persians and the honourable circum- 
stances of the foundation of their empire, but they 
justified their rule, not by arguments based upon justice, 
but by the right of the stronger. *' We are not the first 
who aspired to rule : the world has ever held that the 
weaker must be kept down by the stronger." They 
ended by demanding arbitration on the basis of the 
thirty years' truce. "If you refuse, we call to witness 
the gods, by whom you have sworn, that 70U are the 
authors of the war ; and we will do our best to strike in 
return." Archidamus, the elderly King of Sparta, followed 
with words of caution. He poured cold water on the 
hot ambition of Sparta. The war would be a long one 
and of quite uncertain issue. He advised them to 
accept arbitration, but not to slacken war-preparations. 



250 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. x. 

Then came Sthenelaidas, one of the Ephors, with a short 
chauvinist speech. " I do not know what the long 
speeches of the Athenians mean. They have been 
loud in their own praises, but they don't pretend to 
say they are dealing honestly with our alHes and 
with the Peloponnesus. If they behaved well in the 
Persian war and are now behaving badly to us they 
ought to be punished twice over, because they were 
once good men and have become bad. . . . Let no one 
tell us that we should take time to think when we are 
suffering injustice. Nay, we reply those who mean to 
do injustice should take a long time to think. With- 
stand the advancing power of Athens. Do not let us 
betray our aUies, but with the gods on our side let us 
attack the evil-doer." After this the question was put 
to the meeting. It was usual to decide by acclamation, 
but the shouting on both sides was so nearly equal 
as to render decision impossible. The issue was so 
great that an accurate vote was a necessity. The 
meeting was therefore divided, and it was discovered that 
a considerable majority had declared for war (432). 
That decision was final so far as the Spartans them- 
selves were concerned, but before action could be 
taken the rule of the Spartan confederacy demanded 
that a meeting of the allies should be summoned and 
their opinion taken. This meeting was held later in 
the same year. The Corinthians were again the prin- 
cipal spokesmen, and urged the necessity for war and 
the good prospects of success. The question was then 
put to all the allies, great and small, and the majority 
declared for war. Active preparations were at once 
begun, but nearly a year passed before blood was 
spilt. 



Ch. X.] Peloponnesian War to Death of Pericles 251 

Pericles and the War. 

During that year the situation at Athens was full of 
difficulty. The great danger of the war stimulated all 
passions, and Pericles especially felt the effects. " Nomi- 
nally a democracy ; really a personal government by the 
first man in the state," — that is Thucydides' verdict on 
the government of Athens. Upon the strength and 
position of Pericles almost everything in the immediate 
future depended, and that both friends and foes knew. 
Already his supreme position had made him the mark 
for numerous attacks. So vigorous had the onslaughts 
of the comic poets been that in 440 a law had been 
introduced forbidding the personation of living men 
upon the stage. But the sallies of the comedians had 
only been the outward sign of certain discontented 
factions among the citizens. The old aristocratic party, 
conquered but not dead, had not forgiven the victorious 
democrat. The party of the priests and of the old 
religion knew that the friend of Anaxagoras and of 
Damon was their enemy. There was a not incon- 
siderable party who wished that the democracy in name 
should become a democracy in reality, and resented 
the appropriation of power by " the first man in the 
state." There were doubtless very many who genuinely 
disliked the idea of war with Sparta and shrank from 
the terrible dangers that it involved. All these different 
parties would desire to overthrow Pericles, and, if he was 
to be overthrown, action must be promptly taken. The 
period between the decision in favour of war at Sparta 
and the actual outbreak of hostilities is full of attacks 
upon Pericles and his friends. 

No man had been more closely allied with Pericles 



252 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. x. 

than the sculptor Phidias. His artistic pursuits had not 
separated him from the public interests of the state. 
He had sympathised with the designs of Pericles, as well 
as executed that portion of them which concerned the 
adornment of Athens. The details and chronology of his 
life are unfortunately very doubtful. But in the year 432 
two charges were brought against him. First, one of 
embezzlement; for he was said to have charged the 
state for more gold than he had used in the great statue 
of Athena. This charge was not dangerous, for the 
golden robes of the goddess were detachable, and when 
weighed clearly proved the honesty of Phidias. But 
next the more dangerous, because vaguer, charge of 
impiety was brought against him. On the shield of the 
goddess was sculptured in low relief a representation of the 
Battle of the Amazons. Greek sentiment did not allow 
the introduction of realism into religious art, and it was 
alleged that on the shield there were two portraits. A 
bald-headed man lifting a great stone was Phidias 
himself. A man fighting with an Amazon, whose face 
was half-concealed by the spear that he held in his hand, 
was Pericles. What exactly was the result of the charge 
is not certain. Plutarch tells us that he was thrown into 
prison, where he fell sick and died. 

The party of the priests had gained a victory, and 
they gained another in an attack on Anaxagoras. The 
plaintiffs in this case were Diopeithes, a fanatical priest, 
who had procured the passing of a law whereby refusal 
to accept the religion of the state was made a' crime 
of high treason ; and Cleon, the leader of the extreme 
democratic party, and after the death of Pericles for 
some time the leader of the state. So dangerous was 
the attack that Pericles had to advise Anaxagoras to fly 



Ch. X.] Pdoponitesian War to Death of Pericles 253 

from Athens. The philosopher found a resting-place 
for his declining years in Lampsacus. 

Aspasia was prosecuted on a similar charge ; and 
along with impiety the corruption of the morals of 
Athenian women was charged against her. The danger 
to Aspasia was really great. Pericles, almost for the only 
time in his life, laid aside the Olympian calm in which 
he usually shrouded his personal feelings. It was long 
remembered how, with tears in his eyes, he pleaded for 
the acquittal of one who was so large a part of his own 
life. And the jurors yielded either to his arguments or 
his tears and acquitted Aspasia. 

At last Pericles himself was directly attacked. Em- 
bezzlement of public moneys was laid to his charge, 
and the case was brought before a jury of fifteen 
hundred citizens. He was acquitted, but it was some- 
thing to have ventured to attack him. 

Thus harassed at home, he had at the same time to 
withstand the attacks of Spartan diplomacy. For the 
year of waiting was occupied by a diplomatic duel; in 
which, of course, all the real causes of quarrel were lost 
sight of, and either side tried to represent the other as 
the aggressor. The first demand of the Spartans was 
a singular one. '' They desired the Athenians to drive 
out the curse of the goddess." In a period that precedes 
clear history — the date may conjecturally be placed at 
620 B.C. — the family of the Alcmaeonid^, to which 
Pericles belonged on his mother's side, had been con- 
cerned in the murder of certain suppliants at the altar of 
Athena (see p. 180). For this offence a curse was sup- 
posed to rest on the whole race. The intention of the 
move was quite clear. The Spartans knaw that a party 
of some strength was opposed to Pericles on religious 



254 Greece m the Age of Pericles [Ch. x. 

grounds, and they tried to use these reHgious prejudices 
to their own advantage. But the blow was parried, and 
returned by a similar demand on the part of the Athenians. 
The Spartans had their own pollution for the murder of 
certain Helots in the temple of Poseidon. Let them, 
said the Athenians, first drive out this from their ow^n 
land, and then they would have some right to complain 
of Athens. After this came demand upon demand, each 
carefully chosen so as to represent Sparta as the guardian 
of the liberties of Greece and Athens as the wanton 
aggressor. First the siege of Potid^a must be raised, 
and ^gina must be allowed her ancient freedom. Then 
the decree must be rescinded whereby the Megarians 
were excluded from all Athenian markets and harbours. 
Then at last, w^hen each of these demands had met with 
a suitable reply, came a solemn embassy from Sparta : 
"The Lacedaemonians desire to maintain peace, and 
peace there may be if you will restore independence to 
the Hellenes." That is to say, the Spartans consented to 
refrain from war if Athens would voluntarily yield them 
all that they could hope to obtain by war. A meeting 
of the ecclesia was called. There were many voices for 
concession, and some apparently for peace at any price. 
But Pericles spoke, and turned the meeting in favour of 
an unbending policy. He dwelt on the weak points of 
Sparta and the strength of Athens, her wealth, her navy, 
and the homogeneity of her power. He hinted at the 
plan of campaign which he desired the state to adopt. 
He answered the demands of Sparta by counter-demands 
equally just, if also equally impossible. He again offered 
the arbitration that had been arranged for by the thirty 
years' treaty, and concluded : "This answer will be just, 
and befits the dignity of the city. We must be aware, 



Ch. X.] Peloponnesian War to Death of Pericles 255 

however, that war will come ; and the more willing we 
are to accept the situation, the less ready will our enemies 
be to lay hands on us. Remember that where dangers 
are greatest, there the greatest honours are to be won by 
men and states. Our fathers, when they withstood the 
Persians, had no such empire as we have; what little they 
had they forsook : not by fortune but by wisdom, and not 
by power but by courage, they repelled the Barbarian, and 
raised us to our present height of greatness. We must 
be worthy of them, and resist our enemies with all our 
might, that we may hand down our empire unimpaired 
to posterity." The Athenians accepted Pericles' advice, 
and gave the Spartans a formal answer, refusing their 
demands, but offering arbitration. And thus war, thou^jh 
not actually declared, was certainly imminent. 

In this great struggle either side was preparing to put 
forth its full strength. The strength of Sparta on land 
was quite irresistible. From the Peloponnese and from 
Central Greece sixty thousand heavy-armed troops would 
come at their call; and their superiority in military 
morale and discipline was as great as in numbers. 
Attica lay helplessly exposed to their attack. The 
isthmus of Corinth and the passes of Geraneia were in 
the hands of the allies of Sparta. The Athenians had 
no means at their disposal of preventing their entry into 
Attica, and no power of resisting them when they had 
entered. The real weakness of Sparta was, firstly, in 
money, and next in ships. Her allies would give their 
bodies, but they would give nothing else. The sinews 
of war would fail her if the war did not come to a very 
speedy conclusion. In ships she was even weaker. Now 
that the Corcyraean navy had joined the Athenian, the 
united fleets could sweep the seas without finding resist- 



256 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. x. 

ance. But Sparta was strong in the moral support of 
Greece. All aristocracies and oligarchies everywhere 
looked upon her as their champion. All states regarded 
the Athenian Empire as unjust, and feared a like fate for 
themselves. It w^as certain that many of the allies of 
Athens would revolt at the first opportunity. The plan 
of the Spartan campaign was to invade Attica, and by 
ravaging the country induce the Athenians to fight ; and 
if they refused to fight, by continued invasions to wear 
down their strength. To this and to the revolt of the 
allies the Spartans trusted most; though there were 
hotter spirits who desired to build a navy with all 
possible speed and attack the Athenians on their own 
element, and Corinth, Megara, Sicyon, and other mari- 
time allies of Sparta could provide a valuable nucleus 
for a navy. But nothing could move Sparta from her 
more cautious policy. 

On the other hand, the two main supports of the 
strength of Athens w^ere her navy and her wealth. She 
could put three hundred ships on the water, and in 
tactics and naval strategy she was as supreme as in 
numbers. Athenian commanders felt a great contempt 
for the old methods of fighting, where ships charged 
one another, and then, lashed together, settled the 
question of victory by a melee of heavy-armed soldiers 
upon the decks; where there was no attempt to break 
the enemy's line, and " brute force and rage made up 
for the want of tactics." To the Athenian commander 
the ship itself was the most important weapon. To 
break the enemy's line and then ram the isolated ships 
of the enemy was his great object, and no other com- 
manders in Greece could direct such manoeuvres and no 
other crews were sufficiently well trained to carry them out. 



/ 



Ch. X.] Peloponnesian War to Death of Pei'icles 257 

The naval supremacy of Athens under Pericles was at 
least as great as that of England under Pitt. Her 
treasury was also full. There was a reserve fund of 
six thousand talents. Probably no other state in Greece 
had an income one-fifth as large. Though the land 
forces of Athens were quite unequal to a contest with 
those of Sparta, they were not inconsiderable : 29,000 
heavy-armed troops were at their disposal, and though 
a great proportion of these would be required to guard 
the fortifications of Athens, a pow^erful force remained 
ready for any expedition. Pericles had carefully drawn 
up his plans with reference to these forces, and the 
central feature of his plans was that Athens should be 
regarded as an island, that she should trust entirely to 
her navy, and only use her army for occasional descents 
and expeditions. Athens was joined to the Piraeus 
and the sea by the long walK She could not therefore 
be blockaded so long as her naval supremacy remained. 
Attica was to be abandoned, with all its farms and 
villages and country pleasures. The whole population 
was to crowd into the space between the long walls of 
Athens. " If we were islanders," says Pericles, " who 
would be more invulnerable ? Let us imagine that we 
are, and acting in that spirit let us give up lands and 
houses, but keep a watch over the city and the sea. . . . 
Mourn not for houses and lands. Men may gain these, 
but these will not gain men. If I thought that you 
w^ould listen to me, I would say to you, ' Go yourselves 
and destroy them, and thereby prove to the Peloponnesians 
that none of these things will move you.' " While Athens 
thus stood strictly on the defensive at home, she was to 
show Sparta that she was also able to attack, by making 
descents on the Peloponnesian coast, as her navy would 

^7 



258 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. x. 

allow her to do, and, carefully husbanding her resources 
and engaging in no distant expeditions, trust to some 
false move on the part of Sparta and her own keen 
watchfulness to decide the war in her favour. 

Thus Pericles waited for the war with what Grote calls 
"a stately and majestic firmness." And this it is im- 
possible not to admire. Yet as we see the two halves of 
Greece clashing together in one of the most suicidal wars 
in history, we ask, '^ In so civilised a world as that of 
Greece was it not possible to avoid war ? And could 
the war policy of Pericles really lead to any good 
results ? " His greatness of character, his vigour of in- 
tellect, every one will concede ; but was he really in this 
case guiding Athens aright ? It is no answer to these 
questions to point to the fact that the war ended in 
disaster for Athens, for that disaster only came when 
Pericles' successors entirely deserted his policy. Nor 
does it seem at all final to denounce the plans of Pericles 
as ambitious and oppressive of the liberties of Greece. 
On the contrary, it is plain that, if Athens had been 
capable of the task, the interests of civilisation would 
have been really forwarded by the subjection of the 
Greek communities to the rule of Athens. The real 
objection to Pericles' policy surely is that Athens was 
not capable of the task. She had held a land-empire 
once, and failed to retain it ; the most that she could 
expect from the present war was the extension of her 
maritime empire. No naval supremacy would give her 
the control of the mainland of Greece. And if we look 
deeper below the surface, we surely find that Athens 
lacked the character necessary for the task ; lacked 
entirely Ihe cohesion and solidity and the high states- 
manship that made the conquests of Rome possible and 



Ch. X.] Peloponnesian War to Death of Pericles 259 

beneficial. Athenian democracy and Athenian society 
had the seeds of decay in themselves, and were quite in- 
capable of guiding others. Doubtless a successful war 
might have altered much in Athens : it might have 
strengthened the executive and upset the democracy ; 
but it could not have given her the character that justifies 
government by supreme ability to govern. 

The First Year of the "War. 

While the main combatants glared at one another with 
drawn swords, each hesitating to strike first, the combat 
was begun by the subordinates in the struggle. On the 
north of the mountain range of Cithaeron was the little 
city of Plataea, in the territory of Bceotia, and yet an ally 
of Athens. Thebes was master of all Bceotia except this 
one city, and she had coveted that for many years past. 
It was Plataea's adhesion to Athens which made friend- 
ship between Thebes and Athens impossible. And now 
Thebes, by an act of treason that neither Greek morality 
nor the thirty years' truce in the least countenanced, 
attempted to seize Plataea. An intrigue was opened 
with the oligarchical party of Plataea. A Theban ex- 
peditionary party found the gates of the city treasonously 
opened to them. They made their way to the market- 
place in the centre of the town and summoned the 
citizens to surrender. The danger was unexpected, the 
number of assailants unknown, and at first the city in 
terror accepted the terms offered. But as time went on 
the smallness of the attacking party was revealed, and 
the Plataeans found courage to resist. They overwhelmed 
the Thebans, barred the gates of the city against them, 
and took most of them prisoners. They would have 
been of immense value if held as hostages ; but neigh- 



2 6o Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. x. 

hourly hatred was stronger than self-interest, and, in spite 
of promises that they had made, they put them all to 
death. The thirty years' peace had been flagrantly 
broken, and the war began at once (431). 

Archidamus sent one last embassy to Athens, but the 
ambassador was not admitted within the walls. The 
Peloponnesian force then assembled at the Isthmus 
and prepared to invade Attica, and as the invasion ap- 
proached the Athenians acted upon Pericles' advice and 
brought their famiHes and all movable property, even to 
the woodwork of their houses, into the city. It was a 
cruel necessity for them. Hitherto the Athenians had 
lived largely in the country ; now all the pleasures of the 
country must be cast on one side for such lodgment as 
they could find within the walls of the city. They forced 
their way where they could into the very temples of the 
gods ; they found shelter in the turrets of the walls, or 
built themselves wretched cabins in the open space be- 
tween the long walls. Such an entire overturn of the 
habits of a people was a heavy price to pay even for 
victory. Archidamus marched slowly up through the 
Eleusinian plain, and then entered the central plain of 
Attica. For some time he refrained from spoiling the 
country, hoping that the Athenians would be induced 
to fight for their crops. It needed all the strength of 
Pericles to restrain them. He refused to call any meet- 
ing of the people, lest their wrath against him should 
find vent there. So Archidamus ravaged the country 
almost up to the walls of the city, and then retired. The 
Athenians meanwhile were not idle. A squadron was 
detached to sail round the Peloponnese, and landed 
here and there and did considerable damage. The 
population of yEgina was cruelly expelled from the 



Ch. X.] Peloponnesian War to Death of Pericles 261 

island upon suspicion of treasonous intentions. The 
territory of Megara was completely ravaged. Foreign 
alliances were made among the barbarians of the north. 
And so the first year of the war ended. No definite 
advantage had been gained. But men's passions had 
been embittered, and the hottest spirits of Sparta 
had to confess that the war would come to no speedy 
conclusion. And as Athens had lost no ground, and had 
been expected to lose much, the advantage on the whole 
rested with her. 

The Plague and the Death of Pericles. 
It seemed that the second year of the war would be 
a close reproduction of the first, consisting of a Spartan 
invasion of Attica and Athenian retaliation. For at the 
beginning of the summer of 430 King Archidamus 
again led a powerful Peloponnesian army into Attica 
and again ravaged the country. But then he withdrew 
from the neighbourhood of Athens, for news came that 
the plague was in the city. To us, acquainted with 
the all-important connection of sanitation and drainage 
with health, the plague does not come as a surprise. 
The vast influx of population into Athens, where no 
sufficient accommodation was to be found, must have 
produced insanitary conditions of an appalling character ; 
and it is to this that modern physicians look, if not for 
the origin of the disease, at any rate for the character it 
took in Athens. It had already appeared in the East, 
but nowhere with such terrible results. Thucydides, 
himself a sufferer, has left us a full and most tragic 
description of it, and it is only possible to paraphrase 
or make extracts from his account. 

At first the physicians applied the usual remedies, but 



262 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. x. 

without any result, and the mortahty among their own pro- 
fession was unusually high, because they most frequently 
came into contact with the disease. Men turned from 
human to divine assistance, but equally without avail. 
The oracles had no useful advice to offer. Men prayed 
in the temples, but the disease was not stayed. Then 
suspicion fell on the Peloponnesians, who were accuse d 
of having poisoned the drinking cisterns. The attack of 
the disease was frightfully sudden. The chief symptoms 
were inflammation of the eyes, with such violent internal 
fever that clothes were intolerable, and many plunged 
into the cisterns to assuage, if possible, their unap- 
peasable thirst. Seven or nine days the disease lasted, 
and when it passed it left behind it a terrible weakness, 
so that many perished of exhaustion. In some cases it 
passed from the vital portions of the body and settled in 
the extremities, so that some lost fingers, toes, or eyes, 
and yet survived. What struck Thucydides most forcibly 
as he looked back upon this terrible time was the 
appalling despondency that fell upon the state, the 
disruption of all laws, human and divine, and the moral 
anarchy which it produced. '' The dead lay as they 
had died, one upon another ; while others, hardly alive, 
wallowed in the streets and crawled about every fountain 
craving for water. The temples in which they lodged 
were full of the corpses of those who died in them ; for 
the violence of the calamity was such that men, not 
knowing where to turn, grew reckless of all law, human 
and divine. The customs which had hitherto been 
observed at funerals were universally violated, and they 
buried their dead each one as best he could. . . . When 
one man had raised a funeral pile, others would come, 
and, throwing on their dead first, set fire to it; or when 



Ch. X.] Peloponnesian War to Death of-Perides 263 

some other corpse was already burning, before they 
could be stopped, would throw then* own dead upon it 
and depart. There were other and worse forms of law- 
lessness which the plague introduced at Athens. Men 
who had hitherto concealed their indulgence now grew 
bolder. . . . Who would be willing to sacrifice himself to 
the law of honour, when he knew not whether he would 
ever live to be held in honour? The pleasure of the 
moment and anything which conduced to it took the 
place both of honour and expediency. No fear of God 
or law of man deterred a criminal. Already a far 
heavier sentence had been passed and was hanging over 
a man's head ; before that fell why should he not take 
a little pleasure ? " This appalling catastrophe, coupled 
with the constant ravages that the Spartans were com- 
mitting in Attica, naturally produced great exasperation 
in Athens. They turned in their wrath against Pericles, 
whom they regarded as the author of the war. Many 
were for accepting the terms of the Lacedaemonians. 
Pericles, who was as usual one of the generals of the 
year, called an assembly and addressed the people with 
his usual stately firmness. His speech is given by 
Thucydides, and is one of Pericles' most striking utter- 
ances. He dwelt on the imperial greatness of Athens, 
the incalculable nature of the late calamity, the good 
hopes that they might still entertain of future success. 
By the memory of what they had been and what they 
were, he conjured them to face the enemy undauntedly. 
''The visitations of heaven should be borne with resigna- 
tion, the sufferings inflicted by the enemy with manliness. 
That has always been the spirit of Athens, and should 
not die out in you. . . . Even if we should be compelled 
at last to abate somewhat of our greatness (for all things 



264 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. X. 

have their times of growth and decay), yet will the 
recollection live that of all Hellenes we ruled over the 
greatest number of Hellenic subjects ; that we withstood 
our enemies, whether single or united, in the most 
terrible wars ; and that we were the inhabitants of a city 
endow^ed w^ith every sort of \vealth and greatness." 

He regained the Athenians' confidence for a time. 
They made no overtures to Sparta, and continued the 
war doggedly. Yet the power of Pericles does not seem 
ever again to have reached the point at w^hich it stood 
before the w^ar began. Shortly afterw^ards, but upon what 
charge we are not told, Pericles was fined by the people 
and not re-elected general ; but afterwards he was again 
elected, and the management of all the affairs of Athens 
w^as put into his hand. And during these last months of 
Pericles' life the war went well for the Athenians. The 
siege of Potidaea ended at last, in 430, by the surrender 
of the place. Its revolt had so deeply incensed the 
Athenians that they would have doubtless liked to put 
a large number of the inhabitants to death, but the 
Athenian generals on the spot wxre anxious to bring the 
siege to an end, and allowed all the inhabitants to come 
out and disperse in the neighbouring states. A still more 
remarkable victory \vas gained by Phormio, the Athenian 
admiral, near Naupactus, in the Corinthian Gulf. It is 
impossible here to give the details of the struggle, which 
arose out^ of an effort of the Peloponnesians to wrest 
Acarnania from the Athenian alliance. All depended 
upon Phormio, the Athenian admiral, who, through 
mismanagement, was left with only twenty vessels to 
guard the Corinthian Gulf. First, he had to meet forty- 
seven Corinthian vessels, who were making for the 
Acarnanian coast never thinking that the Athenians 



Ch. X.] Feloponnesian War to Death of Pericles 265 

would attack them at a disadvantage of nearly three to 
one. But the superiority of Athenian disciphne and 
tactics made up for want of numbers. The Corinthians 
were defeated, and twelve out of the forty-seven vessels 
taken. It was a notable victory, but something more 
surprising was to follow. The Corinthians were rein- 
forced by a Feloponnesian fleet, and there were now 
seventy-seven vessels in all on the Spartan side, while 
Phormio still had only his twenty ships. He had 
applied for reinforcements, but they had not arrived : 
the whole expedition seems, indeed, to have been 
grievously mismanaged by the Athenian government. 
With twenty vessels against seventy-seven, Phormio had 
still no thought of flight. If he could fight in the open 
sea, he trusted to the rowing powers of his men and his 
superiority in tactics to avoid defeat. But Brasidas, the 
Spartan admiral, skilfully duped him into entering the 
narrow part of the strait, and there attacked him. Of 
Phormio's twenty vessels nine were driven aground. 
The eleven that remained were hotly pursued by twenty 
Peloponnesian ships that already sang the Paean in 
anticipation of victory. Suddenly the Athenian vessels 
turned, rammed the leading ship of the Peloponnesian 
squadron, and by this unexpected blow so discouraged 
the others that they took to flight. The rest of the 
squadron caught their panic, and soon men saw the 
almost incredible sight of eleven Athenian vessels charging 
and driving before them in confusion a Peloponnesian 
fleet of seventy-seven. They recaptured all their own 
ships, and six of the enemy fell into their hands. But 
the moral worth of the victory was greater than the 
capture of any number of ships. Nothing could more 
clearly have shown the superiority of Athens at sea. 



266 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. X. 

When the news of this brilliant victory came to Athens 
Pericles was dying. The end of his life must have been 
a very sorrowful one. His house had been left desolate 
by the plague. His two legitimate sons Paralus and 
Xanthippus had been carried off by it, and his sister and 
many other relatives had also perished. He was sixty- 
four years of age. It is not certain whether he himself 
had had the plague or not, but it seems that since the 
time of the plague he had never been well. We can 
easily believe that it needed the persuasion of his friends 
to induce him to take again the helm of affairs. He used 
his regained influence to procure from the people 
permission to legitimise the son that Aspasia had 
borne to him, and permission was readily granted. But 
he had not health or strength sufficient for the task. We 
get two interesting anecdotes of his last days. When his 
friends came to see him he showed them an amulet that 
he had hung round his neck. We can imagine him smiling 
as he did so at the thought that he had been induced in 
his old age to adopt one of those superstitious uses that he 
had so despised all his life. And again we are told by 
Plutarch that when men spoke at his bedside of the 
victories that he had gained, the power that he had held, 
and his nobleness of character, he roused himself from 
the slumber into which his friends believed that he had 
fallen to say that these were not his chief titles to fame : 
he was proudest to think that no Athenian had ever put on 
mourning because^f him. It is a strange claim from the 
unflinching adviser of the Peloponnesian war ; but if it 
be interpreted as claiming for his policy a dislike for all 
but necessary wars, and for his character a high degree of 
humanity and a complete absence of vindictiveness, the 
claim will be readily allowed by all who know his history. 



Cii. X.] Peloponnesian War to Death of Pericles 267 

The greatest of Athenian statesmen died in the sixty- 
fifth year of his age. His great name depends rather on 
what he attempted than on what he accompHshed. He 
steered Athens straight for the Peloponnesian war, and 
she emerged from it defeated and broken. He com- 
pleted the Athenian democracy, and he was hardly dead 
before it began to decline from that greatness of char- 
acter that he attributed to it in his " Funeral Oration." 
He is not a great architect of order like Caesar, nor 
a great conqueror like Alexander. The institutions he 
founded had no permanence like the Roman Senate or 
the English Parliament. His idea of an imperial demo- 
cracy was a phantom never yet realised in the world's 
history. He marks not only the zenith of Greece's 
greatness, but the beginning of her decline. Yet he has 
a claim to a place in the world's roll of statesmen which 
will always be conceded. For he saw the need of 
Hellenic union, and tried to realise it. We read vague 
accounts of an early attempt to collect deputies from all 
parts of Greece to consider some scheme for common 
Hellenic action. And after those early dreams had 
disappeared, he tried to make Athens worthy of the head- 
ship of Greece, and to gain her that position by diplo 
macy and arms. The attempt failed, perhaps was bound 
to fail ; but it showed a just appreciation of the needs 
of Greece, and by Pericles w^as worthily made. And if 
his military and political schemes failed, his service to art 
and thought deserves eternal gratitude. The friend of 
Phidias and Socrates, Damon and Anaxagoras, deserves 
at least as great a name among the wise patrons of the 
world as Maecenas or Louis XIV. He showed the 
world that a city might be something besides an 
agglomeration of houses. In his hands Athens be- 



2 68 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. X. 

came a thing of beauty in itself such as Florence was 
long afterwards. So long as the literature of Greece 
calls forth admiration, and so long as the pillars of the 
Parthenon remain upon the Acropolis, Pericles' name 
will be had in honour. 

The personal character of a great statesman is not 
a matter of the first historical importance. But it is 
pleasant to find so close a correspondence between the 
work and the man as we do in Pericles. The char- 
acter that he ascribes to the Athenian democracy was 
realised, at any rate, in himself: he was a philosopher, 
and yet a man of action ; a lover of art, and yet lived 
an austere life. He led the Athenian democracy with- 
out ever adopting the tactics of a demagogue. It may 
be doubted indeed whether any great popular leader 
ever had so little recourse to flattery. He gave power to 
the people, but never assumed that the voice of the 
people was necessarily right. His speeches did not 
echo the wishes of the ecclesia, but gave it guidance, 
often of an unpopular kind. And in what more immedi- 
ately concerns his private life, our impression is equally 
favourable. His continued tenderness to Aspasia, his 
passion of grief upon the death of his sons, the warm 
regard of so distinguished a circle of friends, all prove 
that behind his almost icy reserve there was a warm and 
affectionate heart. And though there is no evidence 
to show that he was an original thinker in philosophy, 
his devotion to high speculation helped to raise him 
above the petty passions of the hour and give him that 
Olympian calm which enemies and friends alike attributed 
to him. 

Note. — Thucydides, Books 1., II. Giote, Curtius, and Plutarch's 
Pericles. 




t^^l^ 



Temple of Athena at Sunium. 



CHAPTER XL 



THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR. 



The history of the Peloponnesian war stands, strictly 
speaking, outside of the subject comprised in this book. 
But as the cahii acceptance of that war was the main 
feature of Pericles' foreign policy, our judgment upon him 
and his age cannot be complete without some know- 
ledge of the main results of the war. No attempt will 
be made to give a detailed narrative of it. For our 
purposes it will be most important in studying its course 
to seek an answer to the following questions : How did 
the Athenian democracy answer in the crisis? What 
was the influence of the war upon the general political 
outlook of Greece ? What changes were introduced by 
it into the thought and feeling of Hellas ? How far does 
its course justify, how far condemn, the policy of Pericles ? 
And in view of the last question it is well to repeat the 

conditions that, in the opinion of Pericles, would have to 

269 



270 Greece in the Age of Peiicles [Ch. xi. 

be observed if success were reasonably to be hoped for. 
He demanded that Athens should resign all hope of 
victory on land, and make full use of the almost insular 
position that her long walls gave her; that distant ex- 
peditions and further acquisitions of empire should be 
strictly resisted ; and that the war should be on the side 
of Athens mainly defensive in character. And va ad- 
dition to these expressly mentioned conditions, there 
must have been another in the mind of Pericles, unless 
his own supremacy had blinded him to the defects of 
the democracy : he must have seen the necessity for the 
commanding influence of some individual to give con- 
sistency to the war policy of the state. 
The war falls naturally into three divisions. 

From the Death of Pericles to the Peace of Wicias. 

Until the sixth year of the war the operations follow 
very closely the lines that had been laid down on both 
sides at the beginning. Every year, except in 429, when 
the condition of the plague-stricken city made approach 
dangerous, a Spartan army entered Attica and ravaged 
the country. And during these years the Athenians as a 
rule confined themselves to measures of defence such as 
Pericles had suggested ; or if they attacked, it was with 
their navy. In 428 an event of the first importance 
occurred, one that the Athenians had feared and the 
Spartans had hoped for from the first. The great island 
of Lesbos, except Chios, the last independent member 
of the Delian confederacy, revolted. It was mainly the 
work of the oligarchical party ; the mass of the population 
remained, as usual, faithful to the Athenian democracy. 
The danger was very great. If the revolt had been im- 
mediately supported by Sparta, it would probably have 



Ch. XL] The Peloponnesian War 27: 

been successful, and would have given the enemy a 
possession of vast importance in itself and a splendid 
standpoint for the promotion of further revolts. But 
Spartan help arrived too late. Mitylene was reduced, 
and with it the whole island. And here we see the 
first striking instance of the cruelties which through 
the whole course of the war disgrace and degrade 
the Greek character. A thousand Mitylensean prisoners 
and their Spartan leader were sent to Athens, and 
in a meeting of the ecclesia it was determined to 
put the whole of them to death, and not only them but 
all the grown-up citizens of Mitylene as well, amounting 
certainly to several thousands. A ship was at once 
despatched to order the execution of this atrocious 
decree, which had the support of Cleon and the extreme 
democratic party. Next day the people realised the 
character of their decision, and another meeting was 
held. The former decree was rescinded : the Mity- 
lenaeans were saved by the despatch of a swift trireme, 
but the sentence of death was carried out on the 
thousand prisoners that had already been brought to 
Athens. In the same year the siege of Plataea was 
brought to an end. A large proportion of the garrison 
had managed to escape. The rest, after a mock trial, 
were slaughtered by the Spartans. 

In 425 came more striking events. The Athenian 
general Demosthenes, a man of great enterprise and 
daring, effected a lodgment in the harbour of Pylos, 
on the west coast of Messenia. The presence of an 
Athenian force there was a very great danger to Sparta. 
For it exposed Spartan territory to the danger of con- 
stant ravage, and it was a standing invitation to the 
Helots of the country Jto revolt — an invitation of which 



272 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. XI. 

they availed themselves in large numbers. A resolute 
effort was made 'to dislodge the Athenians, but in vain, 
and in the effort a considerable number of Spartan 
hoplites were shut up in the island of Sphacteria, just 
off the coast, and were then surrounded and besieged 
by the Athenians. They defended themselves so reso- 
lutely that the Athenians were almost ready to abandon 
the attempt to capture them. Cleon, however, with the 
extreme democratic party, clamoured for more vigorous 
measures. The command of a new enterprise was given 
to him. The island was captured, and 292 Spartan hop- 
lites were brought prisoners to Athens. So great was 
the despondency of Sparta that, without question, Athens 
might have had peace had she wished it, and peace both 
honourable and highly advantageous. But the success 
at Pylos had fired the imagination of the Athenians ; 
nothing seemed impossible to them. 

But the next year — 424 B.C., the eighth year of the 
war — affairs assumed a different complexion. The tide 
of victory began to ebb from Athens. For, in the first 
place, they attempted a considerable operation on land. 
Thebes was almost as bitter an enemy as Sparta, and 
two expeditions entered Boeotia from north and south, 
intending to join and give battle to the enemy. But 
they failed to effect a junction, and the division that 
entered from the north, under the leadership of Hippo- 
crates, was attacked and entirely defeated near Delium. 
And further north Athens had received a graver blow 
still. For Sparta had at last produced a man. The 
discipline and policy of Sparta kept up a high average 
of courage and civic feeling among the citizens, but 
the whole character of the state placed the greatest 
obstacles in the way of the production of special talent; 



Ch. XI.] The Peloponnesian War 273 

and men of special ability could not use their powers 
in the neighbourhood of the city, under the watchful 
suspicion of the Ephors. Brasidas, who now comes on 
the stage, to play there for a short time a most brilliant 
part, had all the great characteristics of Sparta — firmness, 
courage, devotion to the state. But the Spartan fondness 
for routine and their contempt of speech and reason were 
absent in him, and had allowed place for the keenest 
enterprise and a singular gift of persuasion. He now 
determined to relieve Sparta from the pressure of some- 
thing like blockade to which the occupation of Pylos and 
the supremacy of the Athenian navy had reduced her. 
And this he hoped to do by striking a blow at some 
distant and vulnerable part of her empire. His enterprise 
was tardily and reluctantly sanctioned by the Spartan 
state. He then led a force, almost entirely consisting 
of Helots, up through Thessaly to the coast of Thrace. 
Here was a rich portion of Athenian rule ; the mines and 
commerce of the country made it particularly valuable 
to Athens. At first Acanthus and then many other towns 
were induced to revolt. Finally Brasidas possessed him- 
self of Amphipolis on the Strymon — a place for which 
Athens had made many sacrifices — the very centre of 
the commerce of the district. 

These blows induced Athens to consider more favour- 
ably the idea of peace. A year's truce upon the basis of 
the status quo was actually adopted. But the war party, 
the ultra-democrats under Cleon, were still anxious for war, 
and in Thrace Brasidas continued hostilities. In 422, the 
tenth year of the war, Cleon was despatched to try to 
repeat his success at Pylos. At Amphipolis he was slain 
and the Athenian force defeated with disgrace. Six 
hundred fell on the Athenian side, but among them was 

18 



274 Greece in the Age of Peiicles [Ch. xi. 

Cleon ; the Spartans lost only seven, but one of the seven 
was Brasidas. The great opponents of peace on either 
side were thus removed. The death of Brasidas was a 
great blow to Sparta, and probably to Greece. If Sparta 
had won under such a chief as Brasidas, it is possible that 
some really efficient and honest organisation might have 
followed in place of the brutal terrorism which, in 
the event, she spread over Greece. A peace — the so- 
called Peace of Nicias — immediately followed (421). 
According to the curious Greek custom which recognised 
war as the normal condition between states, that peace 
was limited to fifty years. Both sides were to give up 
what they had gained in the war. Eleven years of war 
had brought no decision of the quarrel, but the belief of 
Pericles that Athens would survive victoriously had been 
fully justified. 

During this period the absence of Pericles was severely 
felt. Athens was no longer "nominally a democracy; 
really a personal government by the first man in the 
state." The ecclesia now reigned supreme, and as a 
result the poHcy of Athens lacked coherence. If space 
allowed us to follow in detail the events of the war, we 
should find numerous instances of quite stupid blunders 
in the use of fleet and army that are due to the orders of 
the general assembly ; we should find throughout the 
whole war a lack of definite plan. Two parties had 
developed themselves, the parties of the moderate and 
extreme democrats ; for now there was no party that 
dared to question or resist the democratic system. 
Oligarchs there were still in Athens no doubt, but they 
were driven underground into clubs and secret societies, 
which before long have a great and fatal influence on 
Athens. At the head of the more moderate party was 



Ch. XL] The Peloponnesian War 275 

Nicias, a man of great wealth and universally recognised 
uprightness of character, but with little energy and no 
spark of genius — a man quite incapable of guiding the 
action of Athens in the terrible struggle in which she was 
engaged. His supporters were the richer classes and 
the men of conservative or timid feeling. The opposite 
party had recognised Cleon as its mouthpiece rather than 
its leader. He was a man of low origin, a tanner by 
trade. He did not possess the full Athenian culture of 
Pericles or Nicias. Thucydides, the most universally 
trusted of historians, and Aristophanes, the bitterest of 
satirical writers, have covered him with abuse. That 
much of this abuse is the mere expression of party hatred 
cannot be doubted. It is equally certain that he 
possessed great gifts as an orator, though his passionate 
gestures offended the Athenians who remembered the 
sobriety of Pericles. It is certain too that as a statesman 
he saw quickly and could act vigorously. The advice he 
gave with regard to the affair of Pylos was derided at the 
time, but proved a brilliant success. All this may be 
admitted; yet it is certain that Cleon was a power for 
evil in the Athenian state, and marked the beginning of 
a great political decline. He fawned on the people, and 
flattered their passions both good and bad ; he substi- 
tuted demagogism for statesmanship. The state lost the 
direction that ^Pericles gave it ; the sense of loyalty 
perished. Henceforward the only wisdom of most of 
the prominent politicians of Athens was, in Plato's 
words, to observe the humours of the great beast. The 
people in the ecclesia recognised no authority outside 
themselves, and into their guidance, necessarily uncertain 
and changeable, the conduct of this great war was 
henceforth entrusted. 



276 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. XI. 

Such was the change that was being worked in Athens. 
And at the same time, both in Athens and elsewhere, a 
still more grievous evil was rising. Patriotic feeling was 
being destroyed by party spirit. The two great states that 
now struggled at death-grips represented the principles 
of oligarchy and democracy. This fact, together with 
the terrible pressure of the war, produced in every state 
oligarchical and democratic parties, or embittered their 
feelings and their action where they already existed. 
The course of the war gives us the most terrible picture 
of civil feuds raging, seen or unseen, in almost every 
Greek state. The opposite party was hated more than the 
common foe. And as Greek morality was state morality, 
and half of what was best in the average Greek came 
from his devotion to the state, this meant a frightful moral 
deterioration. This was the feature of the war that 
seems to have struck Thucydides more than any other. 
In the eighty-second chapter of the third book he says : 
^* In every city the chiefs of the democracy and of the 
oligarchy were struggling, the one to britig in the 
Athenians, the other the Lacedaemonians. Now in time 
of peace men would have had no excuse for introducing 
either and no desire to do so, but when they were at war 
the dissatisfied party was only too ready to invoke foreign 
aid." And with special bitterness he speaks of the moral 
decline that ensued from the bitterness of the parties. 
''The meaning of words had no longer the same relations 
to things, but was changed by men as they thought 
proper. Reckless daring was held to be loyal courage ; 
prudent delay was the excuse of a coward; moderation 
was the disguise of unmanly weakness ; frantic energy 
was the true quality of a man. The tie of party was 
stronger than the tie of blood. The seal of good faith 



Ch. XL] The Peloponnesian War 277 

was not divine law, but fellowship in crime. Revenge 
was dearer than self-preservation. . . . The cause of all 
these evils was the love of power, originating in avarice 
and ambition, and the party spirit which is engendered 
by them when men are fairly embarked on a contest. 
For the leaders on each side used specious names, the 
one professing to uphold the constitutional equality of 
the many, the other the wisdom of an aristocracy ; while 
they made the public interests to w^hich in name they 
w^ere devoted in reality their prize. . . . Thus revolution 
gave birth to every form of wickedness in Hellas. The 
simplicity w^hich is so large an element in a noble nature 
was laughed to scorn and disappeared. An attitude of 
perfidious antagonism everywhere prevailed ; for there 
was no word binding enough, no oath terrible enough, to 
reconcile enemies. Each man was strong only in the 
conviction that nothing was secure : he must look to his 
own safety, and could not afford to trust to others." Such 
was the condition of Greece when the Peace of Nicias 
gave her a gasping space before a fiercer struggle began. 

The Sicilian Expedition. 

When we consider the high hopes of immediate 
victory with which the Spartans entered on the Pelo- 
ponnesian war, it is plain that the Peace of Nicias really 
marks an Athenian victory. It seems plain too that if 
the conditions of Greece and the ambitions of the con- 
tending states did not allow a permanent peace, Athens 
might have faced a renewal of the struggle with equa- 
nimity, confident that an adherence more or less close 
to the advice of Pericles would secure them victory in 
the end. But a combination of circumstances drove 
her into a wild scheme of conquest that, in the event, 



278 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. xi. 

brought rum to the state, and, so far as we can see, 
could not by any possibility have brought lasting good. 

Foremost among the causes that led to the ruin of 
Athens was the rise of Alcibiades to influence and 
power. There is a great temptation to linger over his 
most striking character. Nature had given him every 
gift and grace to the ruin of his state and himself. A 
less suspicious state might have used him as an instru- 
ment to the greatest victories ; a less disloyal nature than 
his might have done great things even for Athens. But 
Alcibiades was unfortunate in Athens and Athens in 
him. His father died when he was about five years 
old. Yet he fell under influences of the best kind ; for 
Pericles was his guardian and Socrates was his earliest 
teacher. What Pericles' influence upon him was we 
do not know, though his commanding influence in the 
state must have been a stimulus to the ambition of his 
ward. Socrates fascinated his intellect and awoke what- 
ever was best in him ; he seems nearly to have saved 
his pupil from the egotism that was his doom and the 
state's. The novelty and eff'ectiveness of the Socratic 
method must have been infinitely attractive to so keen 
a brain as his ; and his egotism was not yet too fully 
developed to prevent the moral earnestness of Socrates 
from appeaUng to him. Between politics and moral 
philosophy there was a struggle for mastery over him. 
The influence of Socrates went near to efl'ecting a 
religious conversion in him ; the vision of moral good- 
ness that he held up made Alcibiades' *^ heart leap up 
far more than the hearts of those who celebrate the 
Corybantic mysteries." But in the end the attraction of 
politics was too strong. *'The glory which the multi- 
tude confers " overwhelmed him. Inclination and 



Ch. XL] The Peloponnesian War 279 

necessity alike drove him to the side of the extreme 
democratic party ; for Nicias was still the trusted leader 
of the conservatives. With superb abilities that amount 
nearly to genius, and with a complete absence of moral 
scruple that reminds us of the age of Machiavelli, he 
drew the eyes of all men on himself, and guided the 
state with a single eye to his own personal advancement. 
He became, without question, the first man in Athens. 
His influence in the state was almost as great as that 
which Pericles had possessed. 

In Athens there was no sufficient career for his am- 
bition. He must flatter the people in order to hold his 
own, and by flattery of the people no stable power could 
be gained. He sought therefore for some opportunity 
in foreign countries. 

Despite the peace between Athens and Sparta, the 
whole of Greece was full of their rivalries. Many of 
the states of the Peloponnese were extremely dissatisfied 
with the recent action of Sparta, and from 421 to 418 
Alcibiades was employed in organising an anti-Spartan 
confederacy within the Peloponnese. His success was 
very great to begin with, but in 418 the Spartans crushed 
their opponents at the battle of Mantinea and re-es- 
tablished their supremacy in the Peloponnese. The 
year 416 saw one of the most terrible acts of the war, an 
act which shows us the desperate cruelty and the entire 
unscrupulousness with which the objects of the war were 
prosecuted even when peace nominally prevailed. The 
island of Melos belonged to the group of the Cyclades, 
but was not a part of the Athenian dominions. In 416 
it was summoned to join. A conference was held 
between the Melians and the Athenians. Thucydides 
has given us a report of it perhaps rather dramatic than 



2 8o Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. xi. 

strictly accurate. Yet there can be no doubt that it 
represents justly the complete moral anarchy which had 
fallen upon Greece. " We will not," say the Athenians, 
go out of our way to prove that we have a right to 
rule. . . . The question of justice only enters where the 
pressure of necessity is equal. The powerful exact what 
they can, and the weak grant what they must. ... Of 
the gods we believe and of men we know that, by a law 
of their nature, wherever they can rule they will." No 
other right is recognised except the right of the stronger. 
The Melians resisted courageously, but yielded at length 
to a blockade. " The Athenians," says Thucydides, 
*^ thereupon put to death all who were of military age, 
and made slaves of the women and children." 

In the same year there came envoys from Egesta, 
in Sicily, asking for help against their neighbours of 
Selinus. We may dismiss the precise question of 
boundaries that caused the original appeal, for, in a 
manner characteristic of the times, the question was soon 
lost sight of. The Athenians did not debate whether 
they should assist Egesta against an aggressive neighbour, 
but whether they should invade Sicily with a view to 
their own advantage. Even at the beginning of the war 
men's eyes were directed westward. Sicily, Italy, Car- 
thage, were spoken of as possible spheres for Hellenic 
conquest. Just now Athens was full of confidence in 
herself, but painfully conscious that she was unable to 
meet the Spartan spear in the open field. And now 
Egesta held out delusive promises of money to pay for 
the whole campaign. The imagination of the Athenians 
kindled. It was in vain that Nicias urged the vast diffi- 
culties, the real impossibility, of adding so great an island 
as Sicily to the Athenian Empire. Alcibiades saw in the 



Ch. XI.] The Pehponnesian War 2 8 i 

expedition a chance of almost irresponsible command 
and an indefinite career. The Athenians followed his 
counsel and voted for the war. 

It was the first decisive deviation from the lines of 
Pericles' policy, and it was necessarily a fatal one. 
Athens with all her strength could barely hold her 
own against Sparta. What could Athens depleted of 
all her best troops hope to do ? '^ You must not be 
extending your empire while you are at war or run into 
unnecessary danger. I am more afraid of your own 
mistakes than of your enemies' designs." So Pericles 
had said before the war began, and now his words were 
to be fully justified. 

The chances of permanent success were against the 
expedition from the first. But its ruin was precipitated 
by events that still remain one of the unsolved problems 
of history. Athens was full of secret political societies, 
oligarchs enrages for the most part, who abandoned 
public for secret opposition to the democracy. It is to 
this origin that we may, with probability, ascribe what 
follows, though the details are as inscrutable for us as 
they w^ere for contemporaries. Shortly before the ex- 
pedition sailed, it was found that most of the statues of 
Hermes which stood before the doors had been muti- 
lated or overthrown. Superstitious fears counted for 
much in Athens. This insult to the gods was a terrible 
omen on the eve of the Sicilian expedition. Rumour 
connected Alcibiades' name with the outrage even before 
the expedition sailed. No decisive action was taken at 
the time ; but after the expedition had departed, taking 
with it a very large proportion of the citizens of Athens, 
the matter was more closely inquired into. The oli- 
garchical clubs saw their opportunity in the absence 



282 Greece i7i the Age of Pericles [Ch. xi. 

of the more vigorous part of the population and of the 
soldiers, who were devoted to Alcibiades. Specific 
charges of impiously parodying the mysteries were 
brought against him. It was determined to order him 
to return home to stand his trial, and a trireme was 
despatched to bring him back to Athens. He refused to 
face the farce of a trial in a city clearly bitterly biassed 
against him, where he would be without the support of 
his own followers. He promised to follow the trireme 
that had summoned him, but took the earliest oppor- 
tunity of escaping. His passionate and egotistic nature 
saw by what means he might acquire distinction and 
revenge. He repaired to Sparta, and put at her 
disposal his talents and his knowledge of Athenian 
affairs (415). 

With terrible accuracy he pointed out the weak points 
in the Athenian defence. Open war must at once be 
renewed ; a fortified post must be established in Attica, 
where a Spartan garrison might be left the whole year 
through, to prevent the Athenians from enjoying a 
single moment of complete security and to entice the 
slaves of Athens to desert ; lastly, and above all, a small 
force under a Spartan commander must be sent to Sicily, 
so that the enemies of Athens there ;iiight know that 
they were to be actively supported by Sparta. Alcibiades' 
advice was taken. Decelea in Attica, a strong position 
near the chief road from Athens to Euboea, was chosen 
for fortification, and a Spartan force was shortly des- 
patched thither to begin its permanent occupation. 
And Gylippus, a Spartan soldier somewhat of the type 
of Brasidas, was despatched with a very small force to 
Sicily. 

Up to his arrival the Athenians, despite the slackness 



Ch. XL] The Peloponnesian War 283 

of Nicias' command, had been making rapid strides to- 
wards success. Syracuse was attacked with considerable 
energy. On sea and on land the Athenians had shown 
themselves more than a match for their opponents. The 
great city was closely blockaded on the side of the sea, 
and Nicias had begun to build a wall of circumvallation 
on the heights of Epipolae behind the city. Depression 
prevailed within Syracuse. Then, despite the efforts of 
Nicias to intercept him, Gylippus made his way into 
Syracuse. At once all was altered. Hope returned. 
The Syracusans, under Gylippus' guidance, took one of 
the Athenian forts and completely frustrated the circum- 
vallation. The depression was transferred to the opposite 
camp. Nicias, never sanguine, had fallen into complete 
despair. He was ill, and dared face neither the responsi- 
bihty of going nor remaining. He wrote helplessly to 
Athens entreating succour, and declaring that nothing 
could be done without considerable reinforcements. 
However disappointed the Athenians might be by the 
failure of their first expedition, they did not yet abandon 
all hope, and sent out Demosthenes, a tried and resolute 
commander, with seventy-three fresh triremes and their 
full complement of troops (413). 

The reinforcements only increased the number of vic- 
tims. True, Demosthenes threw more vigour into the 
attack. He directed a vigorous onslaught upon the 
counter-works of the Syracusans to be made at night. 
At first successful, it was in the end driven back ; and 
Demosthenes, considering the strength of the city and 
the enfeebled condition of the Athenian troops, had the 
courage to advise a retreat. But Nicias feared the censure 
of the Athenian democracy, and though entirely without 
hope preferred to remain. Yet the danger increased 



284 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. XL 

every day, and at last he gave his consent to the idea 
of withdrawal. Everything was prepared. Already the 
sailors were preparing to push off, when an eclipse of the 
moon took place. Nicias was in all things full of super- 
stitious piety. The soothsayers declared that the gods 
were clearly opposed, and the departure must be delayed 
to the next full moon. But in this over-harassed man 
religious conviction was as little stable as his military 
resolution. Frightened by the prospect of impending 
calamity, he again gave the word for flight. It was too 
late. The desire to escape being in itself a declara- 
tion of defeat gave the Syracusans courage to attack. 
The Athenian ships, rotten and manned by dispirited 
crews, and fighting in the harbour, where there w^as in- 
sufficient space for manoeuvres, were defeated, and the 
Syracusans proceeded at once to block up the mouth of 
the harbour. 

The position was now one for utter despair. At all 
costs the entrance of the harbour must be forced. The 
Athenian ships were manned once more, and sent against 
the blockading line. A desperate struggle ensued, while 
the shores w^ere thronged with thousands of spectators. 
But Athenian seamanship, even if their ships had been 
good, could show nothing of its wonted skill in such 
confined waters. The enemy's ships had been made 
specially strong for the struggle. In the end the Athenians 
fell back defeated, and no efforts of their commanders 
could give them heart for the renew^al of the struggle. 
No hope now remained except to retire by land to the 
neighbouring friendly city of Camarina. If the attempt 
had been made at once it would probably have succeeded, 
but Nicias was duped into a delay of twenty-four hours, 
and when the army set out all the roads were guarded 



Ch. xi.j The Peloponnesian War 285 

with Syracusan soldiery. What follows is the most tragic 
picture in Greek history. The force marched out of 
camp in two divisions, commanded by Nicias and 
Demosthenes. Disaster met them from the first. They 
were forced to turn aside from their intended route 
because it was blocked by a Syracusan force. Hence- 
forward they wandered almost aimlessly where the 
prospect of less resistance or better provisions attracted 
them ; all the time they were harassed by cavalry and 
many were cut off, and hunger and thirst maddened 
them. On the sixth day of this miserable retreat the 
division of Demosthenes was surrounded and over- 
whelmed by missile weapons, until those that remained, 
six thousand in number, surrendered upon promise of 
their lives. Two days later the troops of Nicias, tortured 
by thirst, flung themselves into the river Assinarus, and 
amidst the constant flight of missile weapons slaked 
their thirst in the water, muddy and dyed with blood. 
At last, when the corpses were piled in heaps upon the 
banks and in the river, Nicias and the few survivors 
surrendered at discretion. Both the Athenian com- 
manders were put to death. The prisoners were thrust 
into the stone quarries, and exposed to all the in- 
clemencies of the weather and the mockery of the 
Syracusan populace. The insufficient food and the 
insanitary conditions rapidly thinned the ranks. After 
ten weeks the allies of the Athenians were sold as 
slaves. But the Athenians themselves had to expiate 
their greatness and their aggressiveness by an imprison- 
ment that ended only with life. The high hopes of 
Periclean Athens ended in the red waters of the Assinarus 
and the stone quarries of Syracuse (413). 



2 86 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. XL 

The End of the War. 

The tragedy of the Sicilian expedition is none the less 
pathetic because we feel that it was deserved. The 
ambition that prompted it was not a noble one ; the 
decision to despatch it was, in view of the situation in 
Central Greece, decidedly unwise ; the recall of Alci- 
biades was either treason or insanity. But what follows 
makes it necessary to pass as severe a verdict on Sparta. 
If Athens was incapable of maintaining or using the 
headship of Greece, Sparta could not grasp it when it 
was held out to her. After the Sicilian disaster, Athens 
lay an easy prey : Sparta gave her time to recover. And 
so between 413 and the end of the war there are nine 
weary years of quite profitless fighting before Athens lies 
in the dust. No chronicle of these nine years can be 
given ; but again, sometimes disregarding the order of 
events, we will consider the main characteristics of the 
contest. 

The war is very confused ; the details seem sometimes 
to have no connection with one another. But the 
character of the war is determined by two circumstances. 
Firstly, if Athens was to be brought to her knees, it must 
be by the destruction of her naval power. The city 
itself was impregnable while the Athenian navy existed. 
And so the theatre of war moves to the ^gean Sea, 
where, after the Sicilian disaster, the Spartans found 
courage to attack Athens. And, secondly, the need of 
money is a most important factor. The treasury of 
Athens was exhausted; Sparta had never had control 
of much money ; and thus on neither side was resolute 
and continuous action possible without assistance from 
some foreign quarter. And thus it came to pass that 



Ch. XL] The Peloponnesian War 287 

again, after the lapse of more than half a century, the 
histories of Greece and Persia intermingle. Persia 
was rapidly falling into that decay that made possible 
the successes of Alexander the Great. But in her 
degradation the civil contentions of Greece gave her an 
opportunity of interfering decisively in the affairs of her 
formerly victorious enemy. Persia was probably not a 
rich country ; but if the pockets of the people were empty 
there was money in the treasury, and money would 
decide the struggle in Greece. Thus soon both Sparta 
and Athens began to consider whether there were any 
means of becoming pensioners of the great king. 
Marathon and Salamis might seem avenged when Sparta 
and Athens appeared, hat in hand, before the Persian 
satraps. Sparta first applied for a loan, and Alcibiades 
was the diplomatist she used in her appHcation. To his 
career we may best attach ourselves as the thread that 
will guide us through this perplexed period. He was 
beginning to weary of his life in Sparta. His dissolute 
manners were effacing the favourable impression that 
his abilities had at first produced. King Agis was his 
bitter enemy ; the boundaries of the Spartan state were 
as much too narrow for him as the walls of Athens had 
been. He was doubtless delighted to get this new 
possibility of action in the waters of the ^gean. Here 
the allies of Athens were falling from her on all sides. 
Chios, Lebedos, Miletus, Abydos, Thasos, Rhodes, 
Euboea, Byzantium — these and many others broke away 
from Athens in the years 412 and 411. If Sparta could 
only get money, she might drive the blow home, and 
Athens would be at her mercy. In 412 Alcibiades 
negotiated three treaties with Tissaphernes, the Persian 
satrap. In all, though in slightly different forms, Sparta 



2 88 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. xi. 

sold the hard-won independence of Greek soil for pay 
for her sailors. 

But Alcibiades was becoming uneasy in his position. 
The Spartans were growing suspicious of him, in charac- 
teristic Spartan fashion. We are told that orders were 
sent out for his assassination. Clearly Sparta would not 
accept him as her master. He conceived the daring 
plan of returning to Athens, despite all the incalculable 
injury that his treason had inflicted on her. His assumed 
influence at the Persian satrap's court, and his really 
unmatched abilities as military leader and diplomatist, 
might make the Athenians willing to receive him. But 
in the strangest w^ay he managed to come as champion 
of the democracy. For in Athens, partly through his own 
instigation, a great oligarchical revolution took place in 
411. The political clubs, in the absence of the Athenian 
fleet at Samos, using the openest terrorism as their 
instrument, overthrew the democracy, and established 
an oligarchy of four hundred as traitorous as it was 
cruel ; for one of its first acts was to attempt to betray 
Athens into the hands of Sparta. Against this oligarchy 
the Athenian navy and army at Samos protested. They 
declared themselves the real Demos of Athens. Yet 
their position was full of the greatest danger. Alcibiades, 
to whom nothing seemed impossible, was welcomed to 
their camp, and elected general for the year. The events 
that follow form a most interesting page of history, but 
must be passed over with the barest mention. A revulsion 
of feeling in Athens overturned the rule of the Four 
Hundred. In the armament at Samos the prevalent 
enthusiasm made the men submit to discipline and face 
any danger. In Alcibiades they had a general who seems 
to have possessed real genius for war. In the battles 



Ch. XL] The Peloponnesian War 289 

of Cynossema (411) and Cyzicus (4 to) the Athenians 
gained signal victories. In the former, fighting against 
odds, the old superiority of Athenian tactics came to 
Hght ; in the latter, under the personal guidance of 
Alcibiades, the Spartan fleet of sixty sail was destroyed 
or taken prisoner. Sparta offered terms for peace ; but 
Athens rejected them, and there is some doubt whether 
they were sincerely meant. The years 409 and 408 passed 
without such important occurrences. The great question 
was the money of Persia, and in 408 embassies from 
both sides were sent up to Susa to seek the favour of 
the great king. Yet still Athens was improving her 
position, and in 407 Alcibiades could return to Athens. 
He was received with a mixture of enthusiasm and 
astonishment. Never before in his career had he seemed 
so powerful. After all her disasters a brighter day might 
seem to be dawning for Athens. 

But now the war took a turn wholly unfavourable to 
Athens, and that for many reasons ; and the faults of 
Athens are as notable as the superior strength of her 
adversary. This indeed received now a most important 
increase. For Cyrus came down to the sea -coast as re- 
presentative of the whole Persian power in that district. 
He possessed firmness of character and pertinacity, and 
he threw himself wholly- on the side of the Spartans. 
In the Spartan admiral, Lysander, he had a man after 
his own heart : a keen Spartan, a capable admiral, 
and even more capable in intrigue and diplomacy. 
Alcibiades meanwhile, after a small and unimportant 
naval defeat, was deposed from his office as general. 
His life would not have been safe in Athens. Sparta 
would scarcely receive him back again. He withdrew, 
therefore, from the force to his fortified castle in the 

19 



290 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. xi. 

Thracian Chersonese, to die two years later by assassina- 
tion. The next year (406) saw another brilliant Athenian 
naval victory. Fighting at Arginusae with a hundred 
and fifty ships against a hundred and twenty, the 
Athenians, with the loss of twenty-five ships, destroyed 
seventy of the enemy. But no defeat could have been 
so ruinous to the cause of Athens as the consequences 
of this victory. A sudden storm had prevented the 
Athenian generals from taking up after their victory 
the corpses and the still living sailors who clung to the 
wreckage. There is no particle of evidence to show that 
they neglected their duty. But when the news was re- 
ceived in Athens, the victorious generals, whose act, if 
properly used, might have saved Athens, were con- 
demned to death for neglect of the religious duty of 
collecting the dead and the wrecked survivors. The 
offence to Athenian religious sentiment was doubtless 
really great ; but it seems probable that the oligarchical 
party, in their secret societies, used the rehgious feeling 
as a pretext for a deliberate act of treason. It is certain 
that the clearest provisions of the law and the most 
obvious principles of justice were pushed aside to accom- 
plish a deliberate act of murder. After this iniquity 
Athens' cup was full. In the next year (405) the 
Athenian fleet of a hundred and eighty triremes was 
destroyed by the Spartans at ^gos-Potamoi, on the 
Hellespont. Bad generalship and actual treason both 
had their share in the disaster. Recent events in Athens 
were not likely to encourage Athenian generals in 
patriotic devotion or military enthusiasm. This terrible 
war was fittingly concluded by an act of appalling 
barbarity : all the Athenian prisoners were put to 
death. 



Ch. XI.] The Peloponnesian War 2gi 

Now even the toughness of the Athenian people was 
broken. Hunger did its work on the city, blockaded 
both by sea and land. At last Athens must yield. Some 
clamoured for utter destruction. Sparta allowed her 
to continue to exist, but an oligarchical government 
must be established and her long walls pulled down. 
The destruction of the fortifications was accomplished 
to the sound of flutes. Many believed that the first 
day of the liberty of Greece had come. 

When we glance back on the twenty-seven years of 
this struggle, our first and strongest impression will be 
the tenacity and elasticity of Athens. Blow after blow 
fell upon her. The plague, the treason of Alcibiades, 
the Sicilian disaster, the revolt of the allies, the Spartan 
and Persian alliance — these were blows any one of 
which might seem enough to ruin a state not possessed 
of so many causes of weakness as Athens. Again and 
again the enemy declared that Athens had sunk ; as 
often did the vessel right itself and make headway 
against the storm. And our next impression will 
probably be the incapacity of Spartan leadership. The 
war is one long string of broken promises, missed 
opportunities, half-hearted attacks. Athens must have 
fallen after the Sicilian expedition if Sparta had re- 
solutely followed up her advantage. The fact that 
Sparta triumphed at all was due rather to her allies 
than to herself. Brasidas, Gyhppus, and Lysander 
did what they did in spite of the narrow jealousies of 
the state. But assuredly the war showed also that the 
character and constitution of Athens were not fitted 
for government or war. It was in vain that the course 
of the war showed most plainly the need of a coherent 
policy, and a centralisation and strengthening of the 



292 Gf'eece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. xi. 

executive. The democracy went on in the old spirit 
of suspicion of superior ability, sacrificing the real 
and obvious interests of the state to their passion for 
equality. Had Pericles lived to curb or guide the ten- 
dencies of the democracy, the result would probably have 
been different. But all restraint had been removed, 
and the constitution was overthrown and the fortifi- 
cations of the city demolished ! From the standpoint 
of Hellenic and universal history the most important 
result of the war was the doom of the independence 
of Hellas. The policy of Athens offered the best 
chance of the formation of a really stable power in 
Hellas : it was at one time possible that the subjects 
or allies might follow her, forgetting their subjection 
in the glory that flowed from their connection with 
Athens. It was partly through her fault that the 
opportunity had been lost. Lost it had been : the 
result of the war consecrated afresh the idea of city 
autonomy. Where Athens had failed no other state 
was likely to succeed. From this time forward one 
of the chief interests of Greek history is the gradual 
but sure approach of foreign conquest. Nearly seventy 
years of independence still remained for Hellas. The 
first part of these seventy years is occupied with the 
headship of Sparta. And then it was clearly proved 
that the liberty of Greece under Spartan headship meant 
an oppression far more severe and infinitely more stupid 
than had ever been implied by the Athenian Empire. 
Athens recovered from her desolation and despondency, 
and again became a power in Greece. Her long walls 
were rebuilt in 393. She aUied herself with Thebes, now 
grown jealous of the power of Sparta, and soon the 
supremacy of the latter was seriously threatened. For 



Ch. XI.] The Peloponnesian War - 293 

Thebes, the dulness of whose citizens was a byword 
in Greece, produced a statesman perhaps the most 
eminent that the history of Greece knows. Epami- 
nondas possessed both the character and the talents to 
make his name memorable in universal history, but 
the circumstances were too hard for him. In the 
battles of Leuctra and Mantinea (371 and 362) he 
crushed the military prestige of Sparta. He himself 
fell in the last battle. Had he lived he could hardly 
have made the Theban headship of Greece an effect- 
ive reality : his death destroyed even the appearance 
of it. 

Divided against herself, Greece saw with an astonish- 
ment that yet could not subdue her jealousies the rise of 
the Macedonian power. The royal family of Macedonia 
claimed Greek descent. Greek culture had long found 
in the court of Macedonia a refuge from the turbulence 
of Hellas. The ** barbarian " inhabitants of the country 
afforded an ideal war material under trained leaders. 
In vain Demosthenes endeavoured to rouse Hellas to 
avert the blow visibly impending. It fell at Chseronea 
in 338, and the independence of Hellas vanished, not to 
reappear until our own century. Some sense of pathos it 
is impossible not to feel when the states of Greece lose 
their liberties. But the historian must confess that little 
was lost that was really valuable. For liberty had 
become anarchy and party passion had destroyed 
patriotism, and nowhere inside of Greece was there 
any sign of the rise of a better social or political 
system. The incorporation of Hellas, first into the 
Macedonian power, and afterwards into that of Rome, 
allowed all that Hellas had so nobly achieved in art or 
science or philosophy to pass into a wider sphere, and 



294 



Greece in the Age of Pericles 



[Ch. XI. 



play its great part in building the fundamental basis 
of European civilisation. 



Note. — The war is merely sketched in outline in this chapter. 
A translation of Thucydides will give the best account of the war. 
But Grote, Curtius, and all modern historians of Greece have 
described it fully. Of special interest too are Plutarch's Lives of 
Alcibiades and Nicias. 




Temple of Theseus. 







'^"^^'^-^y^^^^ 








The Athenian Theatre. 



CHAPTER XII. 



THOUGHT AND ART IN ATHENS. 

It has been already maintained in this volume that the 
essential gift of Greece to civilisation is not to be found 
in her military efforts or in her political ideas. The 
task of conquest and organisation, so absolutely necessary 
for the expansion of civilisation, was worthily performed 
by Rome, after Greece had shown herself unable to cope 
with it. Art, Science, and PhilosopTiy — that is what 
Greece gave to the world. She taught the lessons of 
"joy in the beauty of life, and of search for truth apart 
from gain or profit." What she gave in art, including 
poetry, directly conditioned all the artistic effort of 
Rome, and, after having been the chief factor in pro- 
ducing the Renaissance, has less directly influenced all 

295 



296 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. xii. 

modern art. What she gave in science and philosophy 
formed the intellectual basis of European life for at least 
fifteen hundred years : for Christianity, on its intellectual 
side, owed more to Greece than to Judaea, and mediaeval 
scholasticism worked almost entirely with the light which 
was reflected from Greek thought after it had for the 
time ceased to shine directly on the world. This vast 
artistic and intellectual elaboration is not compressed 
within the limits of the age of Pericles. Many of the 
greatest poetic works of Greece had been produced 
before this period, and the most important scientific and 
philosophical work comes long after it. Yet the Periclean 
era marks the most brilliant period in the life of Athens, 
when art and science and politics and war were all 
prosecuted with energy and success. It sees the old 
age of ^schylus, the chief works of Sophocles and 
Euripides, the triumphs of Phidias, the beginning of 
the career of Socrates, the histories of Herodotus and 
Thucydides. The intellectual movement that is in- 
dicated by these names is much more important in the 
world's history than the democratic changes of Pericles 
or the Peloponnesian war. It is well, then, in a 
book that deals with the age of Pericles, to conclude 
with some account of the intellectual and artistic life 
of Athens. 

Hard as it is to determine what conditions are most 
favourable to art and thought, it is clear that there was 
much in the spiritual and material position of Greece in 
the fifth century B.C. that favoured development in both 
directions. If difference be the first condition of pro- 
gress, the numerous petty states with their different 
constitutions, and, to a less extent, their different customs, 
assisted intellectual progress. At the Olympian festival 



Ch. XII.] Thought and Art in Athens 297 

how great a fund of varied experience must have been 
presented to the politician or the philosopher ! How 
this variety must have stimulated speculation and driven 
the mind out of a tame acceptance of routine ! Further, 
the institution o£ slavery played an important part. Art 
and thought are both luxuries of life, and only begin 
when the immediate wants of the body have been satis- 
fied. The free Greek need not devote all his attention 
to these wants, because a slave class existed to do that 
for him. If we look into the Greek market-place, we 
see men with no very definite occupation, ready to talk, 
argue, admire, and criticise; as ready in the days of 
Pericles as they were five centuries later to hear any 
new thing. This habit developed later into a purpose- 
less and indeed debasing argumentativeness. But it was 
the source out of which came the eloquence and the 
philosophy of Greece. Without slavery, indeed, Greek 
civilisation is inconceivable. The climate of Greece, 
too, deserves a passing notice. It is not an accident 
that civilisation and thought and art have their beginnings 
in warm countries. The first wants of life are there 
more easily provided for ; the contest with the soil and 
the climate is not so engrossing. 

Nor was Greece less favoured in other and more 
general ways. The small scale of her political life pre- 
vented attention being absorbed by war or government. 
If Athens had conquered in the Peloponnesian war, it 
would have been surely to a practical, not to a speculative 
life, that her best spirits would have turned. Baulked in 
her striving after material supremacy, she, consciously or 
instinctively, only the more carefully asserted her in- 
tellectual and artistic superiority. There is a real an- 
tagonism between speculation and effective action. Plato 



298 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. xil. 

and Aristotle could hardly have carried on their work in 
conquering and organising Rome. And, lastly, the art 
and thought of Greece were helped by her religion. 
Heaven and earth were peopled with beings of the same 
nature as man. The legends that were told of them 
gave to poets a material that would interest all, such 
as the mediaeval legends gave to the painters of the 
Renaissance period. The simply human character of 
the gods prevented the sculptors from engaging on 
grotesque monsters such as the art of the East too often 
presents us with. And Greek religion performed a 
negative service even to thought. The Greek conception 
of the deity had never been sufficiently awe-inspiring to 
overwhelm and crush the imagination and the intellect ; 
and by the time of Pericles the literary class were com- 
pletely free-thinking, and were busy in seeking for a 
relation between themselves and the world that their 
religion no longer afforded. 

Greek Education. 

Greek education consisted of three parts — " Letters,'' 
Music, and Gymnastics. By " Letters '' we are to under- 
stand reading and writing, as well as simple operations 
in arithmetic. Neither reading nor writing was such an 
easy matter as with us. For in the Greek manuscript 
the words ran into one another with no indication where 
one ended or the other began ; and writing was done 
with a sharp instrument (stylus) on a tablet smeared 
with wax, which offered much greater difficulty than our 
modern pen and paper. The poems of Homer formed 
the basis of this division of education. Mottoes from 
his poems were written as " copies " : they formed the 



Ch. XII.] Thought and Art in Athens 299 

first reading lesson, and were committed to memory. 
The incidents and the reflections in the Iliad and 
the Odyssey were taken as the basis for such moral 
training as was given. No poet ever penetrated and 
influenced the life of a great nation to an equal extent. 
It has been remarked that he was at once the Bible 
and the Shakespeare, the Robinson Crusoe and the 
Arabian Nights, of the Greeks. He was, moreover, the 
common possession of all the Greeks, and thus acted 
as a great uniting and unifying force ; perhaps the most 
potent of all. 

The most striking feature of Greek education to our 
eyes is the large space and great importance allotted to 
music. It was regarded as an absolute necessity in all 
education. We are told that Themistocles, being of 
half-alien blood, was therefore not admitted to the 
ordinary education of Athenian boys, and his incapacity 
to play on any musical instrument is mentioned as an 
evidence and a result of it. The artistic and emotional 
temperament of the Greeks, and perhaps also the simple 
character of their music, made them extraordinarily sus- 
ceptible to its influences. Both Plato and Aristotle 
protest against the admission of all kinds of music in- 
discriminately. It is not to the words attached to music 
that the objection is made ; but to the moral effect of 
certain styles or modes of music. 

The education of the Greek was completed by a course 
of gymnastic training, which was superintended with a 
care and assiduity unexampled. The gymnasium was a 
feature in every Greek town, and no Greek boy, unless 
physically incapable, failed to go through the discipline. 
Its object was at first to train the body with a view to 
efficiency in war ; but later the influence of the Olympian 



300 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. xil. 

and other athletic festivals became very great, and 
gymnastic efficiency was pursued for its own sake. The 
Greeks were passionately fond of all sorts of competitions 
between individuals, whether decided by strength or 
dexterity \ but games betw^een sides, of the nature of 
modern athletic games, were almost wholly unknown to 
them. 

This harmonious training of the mental, physical, and 
aesthetic nature, together with the simple character of 
early Greek society and the absence of specialised 
sciences, allowed a comprehensiveness of interests and 
knowledge to the men of the earlier period which 
afterwards became impossible. For after the Persian 
war life became more complex, and with the beginning 
of the scientific movement knowledge became more 
specialised, and it was no longer so easy as it had been 
for a Solon or a Pericles to *' see life steadily and see it 
whole." Especially town life became more and more 
important, and the political assembly and the jury courts 
forced themselves more and more on the attention of 
all citizens. To satisfy political ambition, or strive with 
success in the courts of law, it was necessary to be able 
to think quickly, to argue cleverly, and express one's 
thoughts in clear language. And along with all this 
went a gradual weakening of the old religious and moral 
bonds. The old religion had lost its hold on the more 
educated classes, and was ceasing to exercise a beneficent 
influence on the masses. Religion and tradition had 
once been sufficient guides for conduct. But now the 
intellect disputed both ; and in a manner to which 
history supplies so many parallels, the growing light 
seemed for a time to obscure the difference betw^een right 
and wrong. Greek education, such as has been described, 



Ch. XII.] Thought and Art in Athens 301 

served admirably for a world where the convictions of 
men on the greatest questions of life were fixed. But it 
supplied no sufficient instruction for practical life, nor 
sufficient guidance in questions of morality, for an age 
of fermentation and unsettlement. And such was the 
Periclean age. 

The Sophists. 

To meet the new wants of the age a new class of 
teachers arose, and these teachers were called Sophists. 
The name was used at first to denote any one who pro- 
fessed knowledge and was willing to impart it. It always 
included a large number of men teaching very various 
subjects, bound together in no way at all, professing no 
common set of opinions, working to no common end. 
We hear of some that were metaphysicians, but as a 
rule they were " rhetoricians, grammarians, teachers of 
mathematics and of what was then known of physical 
science, teachers of music, teachers of virtue and of 
politics and of the art of success in citizen life, dialec- 
ticians, disputants and experimenters in logic." They 
were in fact a sort of unorganised university, a number 
of lecturers on all subjects that were embraced in the 
intellectual horizon of the Greeks, without material 
organisation, and without any common intellectual basis. 
But the subject that they most usually taught, because 
there was the largest demand for it, was the art of 
speaking and arguing, rhetoric and dialectic : the art, that 
is, which would allow its possessor to shine in the meeting 
at the Pnyx or discomfit his adversary before the jury 
courts. In both places victory, and not the discovery 
of truth, is the object aimed at. It was the duty of the 
Sophists to teach a fluent and grammatical style, the 



302 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. xii. 

correct use of words, the best method of rebutting or of 
eluding the arguments of an adversary, how to cover a 
weak case and how to attack a strong one. All these 
accomplishments might be used in the cause of truth ; 
but they might also be used against it. The Sophist 
was indeed like the fencing master, who teaches the use 
of weapons without any thought of the cause in which 
they will be used. The same spirit too seems to have 
animated them when they dealt with other subjects. 
When they treated of ethical questions they may often 
have upheld the principles of truth and justice, like 
Prodicus in his fable of the Choice of Hercules. But 
there is reason to think that they displayed as a rule a 
mere intellectual pleasure in juggling with arguments 
on the one side and the other, and in showing on how 
insecure a basis the traditional view of moraHty rested. 
They contrasted " conventional " morality with " natural " 
to the disadvantage of the former, and often made 
" natural " morality consist in the declaration that " might 
was right." There was doubtless a good deal of vulgar 
envy and dislike felt against these men, such as is 
often manifested against those who possess superior 
talents and use them to reject what is traditional. But 
the Sophists were also bitterly attacked by the greatest 
names in Greek philosophy, by Socrates, Plato, and 
Aristotle ; and a short consideration of their objections 
may lead to a clearer opinion on the work of the Sophists. 
The first and most constantly urged objection is that 
"they teach for pay." They are "mercenary adven- 
turers." They take fees from those whom they teach, 
and become wealthy in consequence. Some of them 
gained great wealth. Socrates tells us that Protagoras 
" gained greater wealth by his profession than Phidias 



Ch. XII. ] Thought and Art in Athens 303 

and ten other sculptors put together/' The fact that 
they charge fees for their instruction is what is urged 
against them. The nineteenth century a.d. finds it a 
strange objection, and yet it has its explanation, and at 
any rate a partial justification. The whole system was 
a new one to the generation of Socrates, and was re- 
garded with the suspicion that usually attaches to any 
novel method of making money. And coming from 
Socrates, who took from his pupils only what they 
willingly gave him, and, teaching constantly, still re- 
mained poor, the charge had a peculiar cogency. He 
pursued after knowledge, not for assistance in the 
competitions of the Pnyx or the law courts, but for 
enlightenment on the destiny and duties of man. He 
was in fact essentially a religious teacher, and despised 
all knowledge that did not aim at a mark as exalted as 
the one he had chosen. And it was and remains true 
that the propagation of a new religious truth is impossible 
on a commercial basis. 

The next charge is connected with the first one. 
Seeing that the Sophists taught for the sake of their 
fees, they must necessarily teach in such a way as would 
attract pupils ; and therefore Socrates and Plato charge 
them with being mere flatterers of the people, not their 
leaders. Plato says of them in the Republic. "All those 
mercenary adventurers called Sophists do but teach the 
collective opinion of the many, . . . and this is their 
wisdom." 

And further, there is the charge underlying those 
already noted that, dealing with subjects where philo- 
sophy of the most comprehensive kind was necessary, 
they had none at their command. They professed to 
teach wisdom, and were not wise. They are alleged to 



304 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. xil. 

be as shallow in their philosophy as they are time-serving 
in their morality. The method of their teaching excluded 
the best results, and even with a better method they had 
nothing of the highest value to teach. Such upon 
analysis seems to be the sum of the hostile criticisms of 
Socrates and Plato. 

This judgment, accepted for many centuries upon the 
authority of such great names, has been in our own 
century strongly disputed. In the fifty-third chapter c^ 
his history of Greece^ Grote has detailed all that we 
know of the Sophists themselves, their work, and their 
opinions, and he has inquired how far the vague charges 
of immorality and corruption so freely brought against 
them are justified by facts. He has clearly proved 
that they did not teach as a body a specially low 
morality, nor occupy themselves in corrupting the 
young; that they have nothing in common except the 
fact that they are professional teachers teaching for 
pay. He has conclusively shown that some such pro- 
fessional teaching in thought, argument, and expression 
was imperatively required by the system of the x\thenian 
democracy, where so much depended on the spoken 
word. He has brought forward instances from their 
teaching of sound work done in matters of grammar and 
.expression, of interesting speculation upon metaphysical 
and philosophical questions, of elevated morality instilled. 
The verdict of posterity, he insists, is too nmch influenced 
by the criticisms of Plato and Aristotle, and is very 
different from the opinions of contemporaries. If we 
accept the intellectual, social, and political condition of 
Athenian society as tolerably satisfactory, we shall be 
forced to admit that their work was of high utility. 
Others have followed Grote, and have pointed out that 



Ch. XII.] Thought and Art in Athens 305 

the charges brought against the Sophists could be 
brought in almost the same words and with equal force 
against the newspaper editors, the lecturers, the university 
professors of to-day. They, like the Sophists, profess no 
common set of doctrines, and strive towards no common 
object ; they too do work, often of an excellent kind, for 
pay. Plato and Aristotle represent, Grote tells us, the 
objections of theorists and reformers to practical men. 
The substantial accuracy of these criticisms must be 
conceded, and yet the criticisms of the philosophers 
have, I think, a greater value for us than contemporary 
opinion. For Greek society needed something more 
than a system of instruction within the limits of con- 
ventional thought. Greece in the fifth century B.C. 
needed a new moral discipline, and a clearer view of the 
meaning and object of life, far more than a sharpening 
of the weapons of political combat, or the quickening 
of the intellectual faculties of the average citizen. The 
Sophists are not to be cleared of all reproach by 
pointing out that they have their modern counterparts. 
" Wherever,'' says Sir Alexander Grant, " men set them- 
selves up as teachers of the highest subjects, and in lieu 
of being devoted to truth for its own sake exhibit a 
tinge of worldly self-interest, there is a reappearance of 
the sophistic spirit." If the future sees the acceptance 
of some coherent philosophy embracing the nature of 
man, the objects and the duties of his life, " lecturers, 
professors, and newspaper editors " may have to wince 
under a criticism that resembles Plato's strictures on the 
Sophists, and it will be seen that what is true in his 
views is not less important than Grote's convincing ex- 
posure of the great misconceptions that have surrounded 
and concealed the subject. 

20 



3o6 G?'eece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. xii. 

Socrates. 

Socrates was himself classed among the Sophists by 
ordinary people, and was finally condemned to death 
upon the same sort of charges that are brought by 
Plato against them. It was alleged that he rejected the 
gods of the state, introduced new objects of worship, 
and corrupted the young. But in temper and method 
and objects he was far removed from the Sophists ; and 
the unanimous verdict of posterity has accepted him as 
one of the greatest moral teachers of all time. 

Neither the facts of his life nor his death concern 
us very much. He was born in 469 B.C., and drank 
his cup of hemlock in 399. His youth thus saw the 
enthusiasm caused by the victories over the Persians ; 
his last years witnessed the humiliation of Athens at the 
hands of Sparta. In the momentous events embraced 
by his life he had taken such a part as fell to the lot of 
every Athenian citizen. He had served in the army 
with conspicuous courage. During the siege of Potidaea 
(432 — 430) his endurance of cold had excited the wonder 
of his comrades in. arms ; in the rout at Delium (424) he 
was one of the few untouched by panic. He refused 
to pay court to the democracy, and regarded with un- 
concealed contempt its use of the lot, its enthusiasms, 
and its ambitions. As a rule, he abstained from all 
political contests, warned by the inner voice, the 
*^ daemon" of which he so often spoke. Yet he always 
inculcated loyalty to the laws of the state, and was an 
obedient subject though an outspoken critic of Athens. 
Twice he had to face as great dangers at the hands of 
his fellow-citizens as he could ever meet on the battle- 
field — once when he refused to be a party to the illegal 



Ch. XII.] Thought and Art in Athens 307 

trial of the commanders in the battle of Arginusae, and 
again when he resisted the will of the oligarchy of the 
Thirty Tyrants (404). On both occasions he followed 
the course of legality and right, without hesitation and 
without consideration of the consequences. 

But the external facts of his life are of little import- 
ance. His character and his teaching are what have left 
a permanent mark upon world-history. In appearance his 
thickset and ungainly figure, his bald head and uncouth 
features, contradicted the Greek belief that moral excel- 
lence was always indicated by physical beauty. In The 
Banquet Plato makes Alcibiades compare him to a box 
such as sculptors used, shaped into the coarse figure of 
Silenus, but when opened revealing the images of the gods. 
When, in the fifteenth century a.d., the revival of learning 
came, and men read the story of Socrates' life and death, 
they hailed him as a saint of the Christian type. But, 
though in his insistence upon morality and in the strenuous 
cast of his character there is something in Socrates not 
usually found among the Greeks, he was in many things 
typically Hellenic. He was, as we have seen, a soldier 
of stubborn courage ; and he accepted without question 
all the pleasures of life. Usually abstemious to the verge 
of asceticism, he was, on occasion, a hard drinker, and 
manifested always keen susceptibility to beauty of person. 
He was passionately devoted to the search after truth, 
and never doubted that reason was the guide to which 
he must trust. *' A life without inquiry is a Hfe not worth 
Hving," is a saying put into his mouth by Plato. Un- 
daunted by failure, he still presses on, and urges his 
disciples to spread wide their sails to reason, and trust 
that it will bring them to the right harbour in the end. 
When, at the last, sentence of death has been pronounced 



3o8 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. xii. 

upon him, he accepts his doom with joy, hoping for 
opportunities in the next world of prosecuting his re- 
searches without interruption. But this passion for 
knowledge was associated in Socrates with a deep piety. 
He was found guilty of rejecting the gods of the state 
and introducing new ones, and the charge was doubt- 
less literally true. His courageous and lucid mind 
could not accept as actually true those faiths which were 
rapidly losing their hold upon the cultured class. But 
no one was less a scoffer than he. He consented even 
to pay the usual sacrifices to the gods of the city; 
he was penetrated with the sense of a Power greater 
than himself who watched over him. He is essentially a 
monotheist, though he still speaks of the gods, and is 
convinced that this divine power has care of men and 
that no harm can happen to a good man. And if a 
passion for truth and a deep piety are the two chief 
features of his character — features rarely combined in 
so high a degree in the same person — its outline is 
not complete until we have added the humour, often 
taking the form of irony, which plays over all his actions 
and utterances. 

As a thinker he established few conclusions, if any, 
but he gave an impulse to thought the effects of which 
have never ceased. He turned speculation to ethical 
questions, and is universally recognised as the founder 
of Moral Philosophy. Others had thought and taught 
on the subject before him; but he devoted all his atten- 
tion to it, and proclaimed it superior in importance to all 
others. His insistence on the necessity for clear thought 
on ethics led him to underrate, and indeed to despise, 
the physical sciences that had been so worthily begun in 
Asia Minor. It was human life and its problems that 



Ch. XII.] . Thought and Art in Athens 309 

interested Socrates. His disciple Xenophon tells us : 
'* He never ceased discussing human affairs, asking : 
What is piety ? What is impiety ? What is the noble, 
what the base? What is the just and what the unjust ? 
What is temperance ? What is madness ? What is a 
state ? What constitutes a citizen ? What is rule over 
men ? What makes a man able to rule ? '' 

He found these words current in society, with all 
definiteness of meaning rubbed off them by constant 
usage. His first task was to make men see that it was 
possible to use words without understanding them. He 
insisted that conventional phrases were not enough, that 
an appeal to Homer or Pindar or ^schylus was not 
enough. Accurate and careful thought was necessary. 
He gave no systematic instruction, and charged his 
disciples no fee ; but it was his custom to get into 
conversation with any Athenian, and if he used any 
word with an ethical meaning, such as " temperate '' or 
*' pious '' or " courageous," to press for a definition of the 
word, professing merely to desire the illumination of his 
own ignorance. We have in the Euthyphro of Plato 
a dialogue illustrating by a typical instance Socrates' 
method of cross-examination. Euthyphron, a compla- 
cent young Athenian, uses the word " holiness," and 
is asked to define it. He defines it as that w^hich is 
pleasing to the gods. Socrates lays his finger on the 
weak point of polytheism. There are many gods, and 
they sometimes differ among themselves : what if a 
thing is pleasing to one god and displeasing to another ? 
The young man re-defines holiness as that which is 
pleasing to all the gods. Socrates professes to be 
pleased with the definition, but then goes on to ask 
whether the pleasure of the gods is the cause or the 



310 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. xil. 

consequence of the holiness of the act. " Is a thing 
holy because it pleases the gods, or does it please the 
gods because it is holy ? '' Euthyphron is driven to 
admit that holiness is an essential quality which the 
favour of the gods cannot change. Socrates thereupon 
implacably presses for a further definition, but Euthy- 
phron, wearied and exasperated, flies from his tormentor. 
The definition of words was new to the age. Few in 
our own century could answer the questions of Socrates ; 
used against the self-satisfied society of Athens, his 
method was clearly invincible. Equally clear is the 
^irritation which the exposure of his ignorance was 
bound to produce in the person interrogated. He 
roused in this way that animosity which ultimately 
brought about his death. Ethical discussions and the 
definition of words are said by Aristotle to be Socrates' 
contributions to thought. His character was perhaps 
nearly as important for Greek thought; for by his 
courage, his elevation, his disinterestedness, and his 
singular charm — above all, perhaps, by the heroism of 
his death — he drew to himself the warmest affections of 
disciples both during his life and after it, and became 
an important moral force for the next five or six cen- 
turies. 

The Theatre at Athens. 

It is not possible to deal here with all the forms of 
intellectual and artistic activity at Athens. I must con- 
fine myself, in addition to what has been said, to a short 
notice of the Athenian theatre and some names in 
Athenian literature. 

The great theatre of Athens was at the south-east 
corner of the Acropolis. The stone seats now iii situ do 



Ch. XII.] Thought and Art in Athens 311 

not belong to the Periclean era, but they give us an idea 
of the extent and accommodation of the old theatre. It is 
computed that thirty thousand could find seats there ; 
that is to say, room was provided for the whole free 
adult population of Athens. At no time in history has 
there been a theatre so influential on the national life 
as that of Athens. Athenian society lacked most of the 
channels through which intellectual and artistic influences 
are brought to bear on the popular mind to-day. There 
were no sermons and no newspapers, and the literature 
of the period, contained in books, must have had a very 
restricted circle of readers. What newspapers, sermons, 
and current literature do for our modern society, that was 
done by the theatre for Athens. For during the best 
period of the Athenian stage there was almost no message 
that might not be delivered from it. We find in the 
plays that still are extant the highest teaching in morality 
and ethics, direct advice on contemporary politics, romance, 
and buffoonery. 

Every feature of the Athenian drama is thoroughly 
characteristic of the people. For, first, it was managed by 
the state. Rich men took in turn the task of providing 
the cost of the staging and production. This was a 
system common in Athenian political life, and the service 
thus performed was known as a " liturgy.'' But, except 
for this, the whole production was under direct state 
control. And, next, this the greatest amusement of 
the people was countenanced by their religion. All 
dramatic performances were in honour of the god 
Dionysus. The priest of the god had the seat of honour 
in the theatre ; the statue of the god was solemnly borne 
thither on the night before the performance began. 
There were theatrical exhibitions only twice in the year : 



312 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. xii. 

each time on the occasion of festivals of Dionysus (the 
Lenaea and the greater Dionysia). And, thirdly, we see 
here as everywhere in the Athenian state the Greek love 
of competition, and their belief in the award of a popular 
jury. For on each occasion three poets competed for 
a prize, each poet presenting three tragedies and one 
humorous or satiric piece. And the prize was awarded, 
after the pieces had all been performed, by five people 
taken by lot from a list voted by the tribes. Every pre- 
caution was taken to ensure that they should give an 
unbiassed verdict, and although there are instances in 
which posterity has refused to accept their verdict, the 
general fairness of their decisions is attested by the large 
number of victories gained by ^^schylus. And, after 
all, theatrical reputations have always been gained by 
popular approval. What is peculiar in Athens is the 
definiteness with which the verdict was given. 

The accessories of the theatre would seem to us rude 
and often grotesque. But great attention was given to 
the subject, ^schylus himself introduced many im- 
provements, and others were added by his successors. 
Yet realism seems never to have been attempted. Indi- 
vidual actors gained great reputations, and the fate of a 
play was sometimes decided by the presence of some 
popular performer ; but, on the whole, the personality of 
the actor was much less emphasised than in the modern 
theatre. The features were concealed, and the voice w^as 
probably assisted by the mask which every performer 
wore. The success of a play, therefore, rested mainly 
on its poetic and dramatic qualities, and only secondarily 
on the adventitious assistance of scenery, music, or the 
personal popularity of an actor. 

The Periclean age saw the masterpieces of all the great 



Ch. XII.] Thought and Art in Athens 313 

Athenian dramatists, ^schylus died in 456, twenty- 
four years before the outbreak of the Peloponnesian 
war, and in spirit he belongs rather to the period of the 
Persian wars than that of the triumphant Athenian demo- 
cracy. He had himself fought with distinction in the 
great battles with the Persian power, and in his play of the 
Persians he has expressed the triumph of Greece at the 
humiliation of her enemy. But the greatest of his plays, 
the Agamefnnon^ and the other plays of the Orestean trilogy, 
belong to the year 458, and were produced during the 
heat of Pericles' early political struggles. No dramatist 
that ever lived has conceived so highly of his functions 
as ^schylus. He paid, indeed, the greatest attention to 
his craft. The first dramas had consisted only of a single 
actor and the chorus, ^schylus added a second actor, 
and thus made real drama possible. Improvements in 
scenery and stage effects are also ascribed to him. But 
he used the stage for the utterance of the most profound 
thoughts on all the deepest problems of life. He preaches 
patriotism and the civic virtues ; his mind is always 
dwelling on the relations of the gods to men ; he rejects 
the cruder ideas of an earlier period, and represents the 
divine power as essentially just, even though justice be 
long in coming. His dramas are second to none that 
Greece produced in interest, but their value as dramatic 
compositions is not the most important thing about them. 
His spirit, as has been well said by Mr. Frederic Harrison, 
is the spirit of " Isaiah and Ezekiel, of Dante and of 
Milton." His utterances on men and gods, on life and 
destiny, make him in Greek life a spiritual influence 
second only to Homer. — Sophocles (495 — 406) saw both 
the beginning and the end of the Periclean period. With 
him the drama threw off the last trace of archaism, both 



314 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. xii. 

in scenic arrangement and in style. In language, in con- 
struction, and in presentation of character, he is a flawless 
artist. During the sixty years of his poetic activity he 
produced, we are told, one hundred and thirteen dramas. 
The seven that remain give us specimens of grace and 
pathos that have no equal. But he has no share of 
^schylus' prophetic fire. Under his guidance the 
Athenian stage ennobled life with a series of touching 
and loving figures, but it did not grasp the conscience 
and the heart of man as ^schylus had done. — Euripides 
(480 — 406) is a contemporary of Sophocles, and it was his 
misfortune, both during his Hfetime and after it, to be over- 
shadowed by his greater rival. He represents a different 
part of the same age. He, like ^schylus, uses the stage 
for the expression of opinions on government, society, 
and religion ; but they are the opinions of a sceptic and 
a revolutionist. He is penetrated with the spirit of the 
new philosophy, which in its vast and progressive move- 
ment was shaking the bases of Athenian society. He 
had studied, we are told, with Anaxagoras, Pericles' 
teacher in philosophy, and later had fallen a good deal 
under the influence of Socrates. The unsatisfied and 
questioning side of his mind and character make him 
peculiarly attractive to the nineteenth century. But, on 
the purely art side, he has great claims on our admira- 
tion. He can strike a deeper chord of pity than any 
other Greek tragedian, and shows remarkable insight and 
power in his representation of female characters. — Aris- 
tophanes (444 — 380) does not belong so much to the 
Periclean era as to that of the Peloponnesian war. But no 
account of the Athenian stage, however cursory, can omit 
some mention of his astonishing genius, to which literary 
history can show no f)arallel. Mr. Frederic Harrison 



Ch. XII.] Thought and Art in Athens 315 

has recently * described the genius of Aristophanes so 
well that I shall be pardoned for adopting his language. 
*' The poet, a passionate believer in the old heroes and 
the ancient institutions and manners of Athens, attacked 
in a series of satires the demagogues, the war politicians, 
the dandies, the quacks, the pettifoggers, the innovators 
in philosophy, politics, manners, and poetry. He is an 
intense and unscrupulous partisan, an incorrigible mocker 
of gods and men, and a bold assertor of the ' good cause ' 
and the * old times.' He exhibits, with all his party 
acrimony and his extravagant ribaldry, a sound political 
sense, a conscientious conservatism, and a courageous 
love for what is just and true. . . . Cleon the dema- 
gogue, Euripides the sentimentalist, and Socrates the 
type of the critical sophist, are the constant objects of 
his ridicule. In all these attacks there is much that is 
blind, not a little that is unfair. But to an earnest 
conservative like the poet, Cleon embodied the follies 
and conceit of democracy, Euripides the taste for 
morbid rhetoric in poetry, and Socrates the Rous- 
seauism of antiquity which subjected every established 
belief to a metaphysical criticism. . . . That as poet 
and satirist he showed every quality in perfection, the 
ancients and moderns are agreed. His inexhaustible 
wit, his fantastic imagination, his rolHcking humour, 
his exquisite visions of fairy-land, have never been 
equalled but by Shakespeare : they two only of poets 
have raised the burlesque into the truly sublime. 
There are, moreover, in the choruses of these comedies 
passages of lyric beauty and power which Pindar might 
envy ; and in mastery of the Attic tongue Sophocles and 
Plato alone can vie with Aristophanes. . . . His comedies 

* In The New Calendar of Great Men, 



3i6 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. xii. 

combined all that in modern times is aimed at by political 
journalism, pictorial caricatures, poetical satires, comic 
opera, and pantomime. If we take Aristophanes in all 
his elements, we should have to look for parallels to 
Swift's pamphlets and Travels of Gulliver^ the caricatures 
of Punch, the lyrics of Shelley and Victor Hugo, the 
fairy world of A Midsiifmner Nighfs Dream and The 
Tetnpest, the invective of Junius, and the humour of 
Carlyle ; all represented with the musical accompani- 
ment and the scenic resources of a modern theatre." 

Prose Writers of the Perielean Age. 

Properly to appreciate the comprehensive activity of 
the Greek intellect in the Perielean period, it would be 
necessary to investigate much besides what is treated of 
in this book. The rapid progress of philosophy in Greece, 
her contributions to science, the important steps already 
made in mechanical discovery, the medical system of 
Hippocrates, would all have to be examined. But I 
shall, through lack of space and knowledge, put aside 
most of these topics, and confine myself to the prose 
writers of the Perielean period. 

Books were, of course, not nearly so important in the 
Greek world as they are with us. It is only the invention 
of printing which has allowed them to exert any wide- 
spread influence on the human mind. In Athens the 
work of copying was not prosecuted in the methodical 
way that is later on found in vogue in Rome. We have, 
I think, no information as to the price of books, but the 
book trade must have been insignificant. Moreover, 
many influences connected with the public and judicial 
life of their city had given the Athenians a great preference 
for the spoken over the written word, and in the style of 



Ch. XII.] Thought and Art in Athens 317 

most of their authors we may distinctly trace the in- 
fluence of the law courts and the public assembly. 
Alike for information and for intellectual stimulus, the 
average Athenian looked to the theatre and to the 
ecclesia, to arguments and conversations in the market- 
place, rather than the scrolls of great writers. We hear 
even of historians reading their works in public. There 
is no trace at this time of literature being regarded as a 
profession in the Athenian world. 

Among the prose writers of the time, two names — 
Herodotus and Thucydides — stand out conspicuous 
above all others. If we put aside Xenophon as belonging 
to a later period, it is their works alone that have been 
preserved to us, except in inconsiderable fragments, and 
it is to them that our attention must chiefly be turned. 
But they were not the first Greek authors to write in 
prose, nor were they even in their own time alone. Prose 
writing, like philosophy, begins upon the west coast of 
Asia Minor, where first the Greek mind showed the 
plenitude of its powers. Cadmus of Miletus is the first 
Greek historian whose name we know, and of him we 
know little but the name. Hecataeus of Miletus is the 
most important predecessor of Herodotus. We see him, 
in the pages of his greater successor, dissuading his 
fellow-countrymen from resistance to the Persians in 
the year 500 B.C., and, when he failed to convince them, 
giving them valuable advice for the prosecution of the war. 
Of his writings very little remains. But we know that 
he was a great traveller, and his Egyptian travels were 
certainly known and used by Herodotus. His most 
important work was a blending of geography and history, 
and we hear of him producing an emended map of the 
world. Leaving Herodotus aside for later notice, the 



3i8 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. xil. 

next name of importance is Hellanicus of Mitylene, 
whose doubtful date is placed at 496 — 411. His works 
dealt with genealogy, chronology, and history, and are 
said — for only a few fragments remain to us — to have been 
written with little attempt at order or style. Among the 
contemporaries of Thucydides two deserve mention, 
Stesimbrotus of Thasos and Ion of Chios. Plutarch 
has preserved sufficient fragments from both to allow us 
to understand the character of their works and regret 
their disappearance. Stesimbrotus lectured on Homer 
in Athens, and among his works are mentioned the Lives 
of Themistocles, Thucydides (the statesman), and Pericles. 
Ion of Chios was a friend of Cimon and of ^schylus, and 
all that we know of him shows us that he was an eager 
partisan of the aristocratic party at Athens. He pro- 
duced many tragedies, of which hardly a trace has been 
left. What we have more reason to regret is a number 
of light sketches of the leading men of Athens, and 
especially of those who were distinguished in art and 
letters. Plutarch has preserved some interesting frag- 
ments. Those that deal with Pericles lay stress on his 
arrogance and exclusiveness, and generally represent 
his conduct in an unfavourable light. We cannot help 
lamenting the disappearance of these works, which would 
have given us so much interesting gossip as to the life of 
the artists and statesmen of the Periclean period ; but 
time has dealt kindly with us in leaving the two greatest 
historians of the period, and it is to their works that we 
must now turn. 

Herodotus was born at Halicarnassus about the year 
484. He was too young, therefore, to retain anything 
but the faintest recollection of the great struggle between 
the Greeks and Persians that he was afterwards to narrate. 



Ch. XII.] Thought and Art in Athens 319 

It is believed, on perhaps insufficient evidence, that he 
fled from Halicarnassus to Samos, but returned after the 
tyrant Lygdamis had been driven out. He travelled far 
and wide in the Greek world. We have in his history 
evidence of journeys as far north as Pontus and Scythia, 
south as far as Elephantine in Egypt, eastward to Babylon, 
and westward to Italy and Sicily. He left Halicarnassus, 
and settled in Athens, — driven from his native country, 
according to one story, by the banter that his naive 
views on religious matters had received at the hands 
of his sceptical countrymen ; or attracted, as is more 
probable, by the growing pre-eminence of Athens in all 
matters of literature and art. In Athens he seems to 
have associated with the great men of the time, and his 
friendship with Sophocles is specially well attested. In 
446 he is said to have received a grant of money from 
the state after the recitation of a part of his history. 
When the colony of Thurii, in Italy, was founded, in 443, 
he joined the new settlement, attracted, perhaps, by the 
possibility of gaining there the full privileges of citizen- 
ship, which were unattainable in Athens. There he 
wrote his history, and there he died. He cannot be 
proved to have lived beyond 430. 

He undertakes in his history to describe the great 
conflict of the Persian war, which he regards, not only 
as the most important struggle, but also as the con- 
verging point of history. Lydia, Persia, Egypt, Scythia 
have all to be dealt with that the real importance of the 
Persian conflict may be understood. His treatment of 
the whole subject is penetrated with deep religious feel- 
ing ; he undertakes to explain, if not to justify, the ways 
of the gods to men. He lived in the age that saw 
scepticism on religious subjects invading the cultivated 



320 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. xii. 

classes; but he himself belongs to the age of faith. 
We can indeed find evidence that he is not untouched 
by the tendencies of his time. Here and there a legend 
is rationalised ; occasionally doubts are expressed as to 
the accuracy of some pious tradition. But the prevailing 
characteristic, and the great charm of his work, is to be 
found in its tone of piety and simple acceptance of the 
faiths of his time. He tells us how Pan appeared to 
Pheidippides before the battle of Marathon, how the 
favour of the gods to the Greeks was clearly shown 
before the battle of Salamis by signs on land and in the 
sky. . He finds in the whole course of the war clear 
proof of his belief that the gods are jealous gods, jealous 
of human greatness, unwilling that anything should be 
greater than themselves, loving always to strike down what 
is highest. He takes therefore his duties as a historian 
very seriously, and yet he loves, too, to tell the story for 
its own sake. He writes his history, he tells us, '' in 
the hope of thereby preserving from decay the remem- 
brance of what men have done, and of preventing the 
great and wonderful actions of the Greeks and the 
barbarians from losing their due meed of glory." And 
when, in the course of his narrative, a good story 
occurs to him, he tells it, even if he has to add that in 
his opinion it is not true. Thus, to take two instances 
out of very many, he tells us (i. 94) how the Lydians, 
sore pressed by famine and blockade, invented games, 
" dice and huckle-bones and ball," to stay the pangs 
of hunger. ** The plan adopted against the famine 
was to engage in games one day so entirely as not to 
feel any craving for food, and the next day to eat and 
abstain from games. In this way they passed eighteen 
years." And, again, he tells (ix. 74) how, at the battle 



Ch. XII.] Thought and Art in Athens 321 

of Platsea, Sophanes " wore an iron anchor fastened to 
his belt, and this, when the enemy drew near, he threw 
out, to the intent that when they made their charge it 
might be impossible for him to be driven from his post/' 
There is something of the spirit of Froissart in him, and 
we must not go to Herodotus for any attempt to trace 
cause and effect, for any philosophical views or any 
constitutional details. But we get from him a narrative 
of one of the greatest crises in the history of the world, 
told with great honesty and impartiality, and doubtless 
with substantial accuracy ; we get a very noble story told 
with wonderful grace, and such elevation of feeling that 
his history may almost take rank with the epic poems of 
the world ; we get, lastly, from the anecdotes and allusions 
with which his pages are filled, a more full and attractive 
view of the social life of Greece than from any other 
source whatever, which the student of history would be 
loth to exchange for much information on constitutions 
and treaties and wars. 

Thucydides differs so completely from Herodotus in 
temper and in belief that it is sometimes hard to realise 
that they were contemporaries. Yet Herodotus was 
probably not more than thirteen when Thucydides was 
born, in the year 471, though he outlived Herodotus 
by about thirty years, dying probably in 403 B.C. The 
details of his early life are unknown to us, but we are 
told that he was influenced and taught by the philosopher 
Anaxagoras. " He began to write," he tells us, ^' when 
the Athenians and Peloponnesians first took up arms, 
believing that the war would be great and memorable 
above any previous war." And all the rest of his life 
quahfied him for his task. **I lived," he says (v. 26), 
"through the whole of the war, and was of mature years 

2X 



322 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. xil. 

and judgment, and I took great pains to make out the 
exact truth. For twenty years I was banished from my 
country after 1 held the command at Amphipolis, and 
associating with both sides, with the Peloponnesians 
quite as much as with the Athenians, because of my 
exile, I was thus enabled to watch quietly the course of 
events/^ 

If we turn from his hfe to his work, we find in his 
History of the Peloponnesian w^ar the most universally 
admired historical composition of all time. In style 
and tone he is the exact opposite of Herodotus, at 
w^hose work he seems occasionally to sneer, as one of the 
" chroniclers who seek to please the ear rather than to 
speak the truth." His striving after accuracy is every- 
where discernible. He is most careful to distinguish the 
time and place of each event, and in this connection the 
opening of the actual narrative of the war in the second 
book is most characteristic : " In the fifteenth year of 
the Peace, when Chrysis, the high priestess of Argos, was 
in the forty-eighth year of her priesthood, Anesias being 
Ephor at Sparta, and at Athens Pythodorus having two 
months of his archonship to run, in the sixth month 
after the engagement at Potidsea, and at the beginning 
of spring, about the first watch of the night, an armed 
force . . . entered Plataea."' In matters of religion he 
belongs to the new sceptical school. Portents and 
oracles that Herodotus chronicles with such childlike 
faith are not mentioned at all, or mentioned only with a 
sneer. He finds nothing supernatural or prophetic in an 
eclipse of the sun that occurs at the beginning of the 
war. He mentions the prophecy that the war would last 
twenty-seven years, but adds that " this was the solitary 
instance in which those who put their faith in oracles 



Ch. XII.] Thought and Art in Ath-ens 323 

were justified by the event '' (v. 26) ; and in another place 
(ii. 54) he delights in showing how oracles are altered to 
make them fit in with circumstances. 

His political attitude is a somewhat exceptional one. 
He is an ardent admirer of Pericles, but an opponent of 
the democratic party. Pericles' policy before the war, 
his proposals for the conduct of the war, his handling of 
the Athenian assembly, are all spoken of with approval. 
But he clearly maintains that what was good in all these 
must be put down to Pericles, not to the democracy. 
Athens, he says, in words already quoted, was under 
Pericles " nominally a democracy, but really a govern- 
ment by the first man in the state." After the death 
of Pericles, the leading politicians ^Svere more on an 
equality with one another ; and each one struggling to 
be first himself, they were ready to sacrifice the whole 
conduct of affairs to the whims of the people " (ii. 65). 
Cleon, the most influential democratic champion after 
Pericles' death, is attacked with a bitterness which 
occasionally gets the better even of Thucydides' usual 
reserve. We get no idea of the form of government 
which he would have liked to see in Athens, but clearly 
the working of the democracy had failed to satisfy him. 

Most noticeable too is the strict reserve, both in 
style and subject, that Thucydides manifests throughout 
his work. He has a very high conception of the 
historian's duties. " The strictly historical character of 
my narrative may be disappointing to the ear. But if 
he who desires to have before his eyes a true picture of 
the events which have happened, and of the like events 
which may be expected to happen hereafter in the order 
of human things, shall pronounce what I have written to 
be useful, then I shall be satisfied. My history is an 



324 Greece in the Age of Pericles [Ch. xii. 

everlasting possession, not a prize composition which is 
heard and forgotten." He casts all aside that does not 
directly assist his attainment of his object. He conceives 
of only two forces as influencing the lives of states — viz., 
war and politics. And his history therefore is entirely 
devoted to politics and war. The art, the drama, and 
philosophy do not seem to exist for him. If he mentions 
the Propylaea, it is to record the expenditure ; Phidias' 
statue of Athena would never have been named were it 
not that the golden robes of the goddess w^ere a useful 
asset of the state treasury. He will tell us absolutely 
nothing of the private life of Pericles and his relations to 
Phidias and Aspasia. Women are indeed hardly ever 
so much as mentioned in his pages. In confining 
himself thus to the work of statesmen and soldiers, he 
omits influences which we now^ see to have been of the 
utmost importance in the life of Athens ; and the passage 
of twenty-three centuries has made the building of the 
Parthenon a matter of much greater importance than the 
siege of Plataea or the battle of Amphipolis. But as a 
result of his method the book has a stern simplicity of 
aim w^hich is not the least among its many charms. For 
Thucydides is no mere painstaking chronicler, but a great 
artist. He refrains, as a rule, from the picturesque and 
sentimental details w^th w^hich some modern historians 
load their pages, and is singularly sparing of moral 
comment, passing over deeds of the greatest atrocity 
without one word of censure. What comment there is 
is usually thrown into the speeches which, with more or 
less of accuracy, are put into the mouths of the leading 
actors in the great drama. Yet a careful reader will find 
that a deep earnestness underlies the whole work, and that 
if he refrains from comment, he is careful that the events 



Ch. XII.] Thought and Art in Athens 325 

should reveal their own morals. And if his narrative is 
often restrained even to coldness, there are occasions 
when through sheer force of presentation he can rouse 
the extreme of terror and of pity. This is nowhere so 
noticeable as in his account of the Sicilian expedition, 
of which Macaulay says : " What colouring is there 
which would not look tame when placed side by side 
with the magnificent light and the terrible shade of 
Thucydides ? " 

We have traversed in this chapter only some depart- 
ments of the mental activity of the Greeks, but enough 
has perhaps been said to show that it is no foolish 
\ Q^xaggeration to call them, intellectually, the most highly 

do\ gifted race that the world has known. 
W \ 

^ Note.— For Greek education Mahaffy's Old Greek Education 

' is very useful. For the Sophists see Grote, ch. liii. There is 

an excellent discussion of the subject in Sir Alexander Grant's 
edition of the Ethics of Aristotle. For all the material details 
of the Greek theatre see Haigh's Greek Theatre-, for the great 
dramatists Mahaffy's History of Greek Literattire, vol. i., is very 
valuable. Vol. ii. deals with the prose writers of Greece. 




Lion Gate, Mycen^. 



M' pyiudL. 




Grantis Age ot' Fa-icl&s 



GBEECE & ADJOINING COASTS 




U^rlbrk: Charles Schi-ibners Sons 



INDEX 



ACR 



COR 



A. 

Acropolis of Athens, 68 ; de- 
coration of, 203. 
^gos-Potamoi, Battle of, 290. 

^schylus, 34. 

Agriculture in Greece, 212 : 
Aristophanes on, 213 ; Plato's 
picture of, 214. 

Alcibiades, 278 ; relation to 
Socrates, 278; in the Pelo- 
ponnese, 279 ; advises the 
Sicilian expedition, 280; re- 
called from Sicily, 282 ; flight 
to Sparta, 282 ; procures 
money from Tissaphernes, 
287 ; returns to Athens, 288 ; 
death, 290. 

Alcmaeonida", The, 82, 84. 

Anaxagoras, 182 ; attacked, 252. 

Apollo, 15, 22. 

Archidamus, 112, 249, 260, 261. 

Archonship, Change in, 139. 

Areopagus, 69, 76, 140 ; func- 
tions curtailed, 141. 

Arginusoe, Battle of, 290. 

Argos, 61 ; defeated by Sparta, 
62 ; and Themistocles, 107. 

Aristophanes, 315. 

Art and Thought, Conditions 
favourable to, 296. 

Aspasia, 184; attacked, 283. 

Assinarus, Battle of, 285. 

Athene, The Goddess, 16. 

Athens, Situation of, 68; strength 
and weakness in Peloponnesian 
war, 256. 

Attica, 67 ; character of soil, 
68, 69. 



B. 

Bifurcation in Greek politics, 

104. 
Boulanger, General, 90. 
Boxers in Greece, 28, 32. 
Brasidas, 265 ; in Thrace, 273 ; 

killed at Amphipolis, 274. 

C. 

Cecryphaleia, Battle of, 119. 
Ceos, 3. 

Chalcis, relation to Athens, 129. 
Characteristics of the Greeks, 

Cimon, 109 ; proxenus to Sparta, 
no; defeats the Persians, 
1 10; expedition against Thasos, 
in; helps Sparta at Ithome, 
113; returns from Ithome, 
115; ostracised, 115; defeats 
the Persians, and dies at 
Cyprus, 127. 

City State, The, 3. 

Cleon, 271 ; at Sphacteria, 272; 
killed at Amphipolis, 274. 

Clemchies, 198. 

Clisthenes, 84, 85; *' makes 
friends with the people," 85 ; 
rearranges the tribes, 86 ; in- 
trodTices ostracism, 88. 

Codrus, 72. 

Colonisation, Greek, 72. 

Commerce at Athens, 214. 

Corcyra, 243 ; quarrels with 
Corinth, 243 ; appeals to 
Athens, 244 ; alliance with 
Athens, 245 ; defeats Corinth, 
246. 



COR 



;28 



ION 



Corinth, 63 ; hatred of Athens, 
241 ; urges on the Pelopon- 
nesian war, 256. 

Coronea, Battle of, 127. 

Council of 400, 75. 

Council of 500, Sy, 153 ; organi- 
sation, 154; chairman, 155; 
duties of, 185. 

Croesus, 24. 

Cylon, 73. 

Cynossema, Battle of, 289. 

Cyzicus, Battle of, 289. 

D. 

Decelea, 282. 

Delian League, 109; change in 
character, 132 ; power of 
Athens in, 132 ; fund, 133 ; 
weakness of, 134 ; coercion 
of subject states, 135 ; gives 
place to the Athenian Empire, 
137 ; grievances of allies, 198. 

Delium, Battle of, 272. 

Delos, 15. 

Delphi, 16, 20, 21 ; temple 
burnt, 83 ; oracle, 94, 96. 

Demeter and Persephone, 17. 

Democracy, Meaning of, 144 ; 
effect of Athenian, on art and 
thought, 174 ; on individual 
character, 175; as an engine 
of government, 176. 

]>emosthenes at Pylos, 271 ; 
despatched to Syracuse, 283 ; 
death, 285. 

Disetetae, 162. 

Docimasia, 152. 

Dodona, 15. 

Dorcis, 104. 

Dorians, 44 ; invasion of-*Pelo- 
pomiese, 45. 

E. 

Ecclesia at Athens, 146; cere- 
monial, 147 ; power of, 148 ; 
the leader of, 148. 

Education at Athens, 298. 

Egypt rebels against Persia, 118; 



assisted by Athens, 119; 

Athenians defeated in, 125. 
Eleusis, Mysteries at, 34 ; temple 

at, 35 ; procession to, 36 ; 

mystic representations, 37. 
Epaminondas, 293. 
Ephialtes, 114, 141. 
Ephors at Sparta, 54. 
Erechtheum, 204. 
Euboea revolts from Athens, 

128; recovered by Athens, 129. 
Euripides, 314. 
Eurotas, 44. 
Eurymedon, Battle of, no. 



Financial administration at 
Athens, 159; merits of, 161. 

G. 

General Assembly at Athens, 75. 
Generals, The, at Athens, 157. 
Geography of Greece, 67. 
Goethe quoted, 14. 
Greece, Service of, to civilisation, 

296. 
Grote quoted, 49. 
Gylippus, 282. 
Gymnastics, 300. 

H. 

Handicrafts at Athens, 216. 

Hecateeus, 317. 

Hellanicus, 318. 

Hellenotamiai, 160. 

Helots, 56; cruel treatment of, 

57, 105, 106 ; rising of, 112. 
Herodotus, 318. 
Hipparchus murdered, 82. 
Hippias, 82 ; expulsion of, 83. 
Holm quoted, 13. 
Homer, Society in time of, 52 ; 

service of, to education, 298. 

I. 

Inarus, King of Libya, 118. 

Ion of Chios, 318. 

Ionian States appeal toGreece,97. 



1ST 



329 



PER 



Isthmian festival, 30. 
Ithome, Siege of, 113. 

J- 

Juries at Athens, 162 ; method 
of working, 163 ; compared 
with EngHsh juries, 165 ; 
drawbacks to, 166. 

L. 
Laws, Making of, in Athens, 167. 
Legal administration at Athens, 

162. 
Lesbos, Revolt of, 270. 
Logistse, 160. 
Long walls of Athens, The, 121, 

123. 
Lot, History of the, 142 ; extent 

of application, 150; tendency 

to keep officials subordinate, 

153- 
Louis XIV., 149. 
Lysander, 289. - 

M. 

Macchiavelli, 151. 

Mantinea, 279. 

Marriage treaties, 6. 

Megara, Importance of, 117; 
alliance with Athens, 118; 
rebels against Athens, 128; 
hatred of Athens, 241. 

Melos taken by Athens, 279. 

Metics, 210. 

Militaiy superiority of civilisa- 
tion over barbarism, 92. 

Mnesicles, 204. 

Music, 299. 

Mutilation of the Hermae, 281. 

Mycenae, 62. 

Myers, Mr. Ernest, 40. 

Myronides, 120. 

Mysteries, o3^{/^7' 

N. 

Nature, Greek love for, 12. 
Naupactus occupied by Helots, 
124. 



Naxos revolts from Athens, 135. 

Nemean festival, 30. 

Nicias, Peace of, 274; character, 

275 ; besieges Syracuse, 283 ; 

consents to withdraw, 284 ; 

defeated, 284; death, 285. 
Nomothetae, 167. 



O. 

Occupations of the Greeks, 210. 
CEnophyta, Battle of, 123. 
Officials, Number of, in Athens. 

150, 218. 
Olympia, Situation of, 27 ; games 

at, 27 ; social influence of, 29. 
Olympian victors, 31. 
Olympus, 14. 
Oracles in Greece, 20sqq. 
Ostracism, ^% ; its objects, 89. 



P. 

Parthenon, The, 206. 

Pascal quoted, i. 

Pausanias, loi ; takes Byzan- 
tium, 102 ; treason, 102 ; 
further treason, 105 ; death, 
105. 

Payment for political duties, 
143, 218. 

Peloponnesian War, Causes of, 
240 ; outbreak of, 259 ; first 
campaign, 260 ; threefold 
division of, 270 ; results of, 
276 ; character of the end of, 
286 ; interference of Persia in, 
287. 

Penestae, 210. 

Pentathlon, 28. 

Pericles opposes Cimon, 1 14 ; 
at battle of Tanagra, 123 ; 
opposes Pleistoanax, 128 ; 
descent of, 179 ; relation to 
the Alcmaeonidae, 180; con- 
ditions of his period, 181 ; 
education, 181 ; relations to 
Anaxagoras, 182 ; to Aspasia, 
184 ; to Phidias, 186 ; per- 



PER 



330 



SPA 



sonal appearance and charac- 
ter, 187 ; policy of, 189 ; his 
political position. 190 ; offices 
held by, 190; Thucydides on 
his political methods. 192 ; 
relation to Sparta^ 193 ; treat- 
ment of allied states, 196 ; 
domestic policy of, 200 ; 
decoration of Athens, 202 ; 
effect of his building schemes, 
217 ; policy with regard to 
the Peloponnesian war, 251 ; 
attacks on his policy, 251 ; 
Sparta intrigues against, 253 ; 
advises war, 254 ; plans for 
the war, 257 ; during the 
plague, 263 ; fined, 264 ; 
death, 266 ; work and char- 
acter, 267 ; Funeral Oration 
of, 168. 

Perioeci, 45, 55. 

Persian war. Importance of, 93 ; 
causes of Greek victory, 94 ; 
result of, 95. 

Phidias, 186 ; attacked, 252. 

Phidon of Argos, 62. 

Phormio, 264. 

Pindar, 31, 35, 38. 

Pisistratus, 78 ; seizes power, 
79 ; character of his rule, 79 ; 
his service to art, 80 ; attends 
to the material interests of his 
people, 81 ; death, 82. 

Plague at Athens, 261. 

Plata^a, 65. 259 ; battle of, 96 ; 
surrender of, 271. 

Plato, 23; on the Athenian 
democracy, 170; on the As- 
sembly, 171 ; on the dema- 
gogue, 172 ; on the democratic 
man, 172; on democratic 
society, 173. 

Pnyx, 146. 

Poletce, 160. 

Poseidon, 16. 

Potidsea revolts against Athens, 
247 ; surrenders, 264. 

Priests in Greece, 18. 

Pythian festival, 30. 



R. 

Religion of Greece, ii, 
Renan quoted, 19. 
Representation unknown in 

Greece, 4. 
Rousseau quoted, 145. 



S. 

Samos rebels, 136. 

Sicilian expedition, 277. 

Slavery in Greece, 8, 219; 
Aristotle on, 221 ; Plato on, 
222 ; treatment of, 223 ; con- 
trast between at Athens and 
Sparta, 224 ; possibilities of 
cruel treatment, 224 ; torture 
of, 225 ; life in the mines, 
225 ; effects of slavery on 
society, 226. See also Helots. 

Socrates, 306 ; character, 307 ; 
his discussions, 309 ; a typical 
instance, 310. 

Solon, 70 ; difficulties of, 73 ; 
character of, 74 ; his social 
measures, 74 ; political mea- 
sures, 75 ; general character 
of his work, 77 ; denounces 
Pisistratus, 78. 

Sophists, 301 ; attacked by Plato, 
303 ; Grote's views on, 304. 

Sophocles, 304. 

Sparta, present condition, 43 ; 
social discipline of, 46 ; charac- 
teristics of, 46 ; treatment of 
children, 47 ; mess tables, 48 ; 
manhood and marriage, 50 ; 
position of women, 51 ; politi- 
cal institutions, 52; monarchy, 
52; Council of Elders, 53; 
popular assembly. 53 ; Ephors. 
54 ; results of system, 58 ; few 
great generals, 59 ; wit, 59 ; 
expulsion of Hippias, 83 ; 
character of Spartan alliance, 
247 ; congress at, 248 ; con- 
trast between Sparta and 
Athens, 248 ; declare for war. 



STE 



331 



ZEU 



251 ; Spartan strength and 
weakness, 255, 
Stesimbrotus of Thasos, 318. 

T. 

Tanagra, Battle of, 122. 

Taygetus, Mount, 44. 

Temple of Wingless Victory, 

204. 
Thasos revolts from Athens, ill, 

136. 

Theatre, The Athenian, 311 ; its 
influence, 311 ; characteristic 
of the people, 312. 

Thebes, 64. 

Themistocles, 99 ; fortifies 
Athens, 100; ostracised, 106; 
retires to Argos, 107 ; in- 
trigues in the Peloponnese, 
107 ; indicted before the 
Athenian Assembly, 108 ; 
flight to Asia and death, 108. 

Theology, Development of 
Greek, 13. 

Thirty years' truce, Terms of, 
130. 

Thucydides, son of Milesias, 
189; ostracised, 190. 



Thucydides, the historian, 321. 
Tiryns, 62. 
Tolmides, 114. 
Tribes, Attic, S6. 
Tyranny at Athens, 77. 
Tyrants in Greece, 73. 



U. 
Unity of Hellas, 2. 

W. 

War, Social functions of, 7. 

Women, Position of, 9 ; de- 
terioration in, 227 ; at Sparta 
compared to Athens, 228 ; 
restrictions in Athens, 229 ; 
marriage, 229 ; causes of se- 
clusion of women, 231 ; Euri- 
pides on, 232 ; Plato on, 233. 



X. 



Xenophon, 18. 



Z. 



Zeus, 14. 



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By William Renton, Lecturer to the Scottish Universities. 
i2mo, with Diagrams, $i.oo net. 

Contents: First Period [600-1600], pages 9-112 I I. The Old Engl sh 
Metric and Chronicle [600-1350]. a. Angio-Saxon, B. Anglo-Norman— II. 
The Renascence [1350-1500] — ill. The Reformation [1500-1600] — IV. The 
Romantic Drama [1550-1650J. Second Period [1600-1900], pages 113 232 : V. 
The Serious Age [1600-1700] — VI. The Age of Gaiety [1650-1750] — VU. The 
Sententious Age [1700-1800] — VIII. The Sympathetic A^^ [iSoo-igoo] — Ap- 
pendix : Literature of America [1600-1900] — Index: Conspectus of British 
and American Poetry. 

Care has been taken that types or schools of literature should be con- 
sidered, and mark the history as one of organic growth from first to last. 

Criticism is supplemented by exposition, with extracts to exhibit the fashion 
of a period or the style of a master. The number of authors indicates the 
importance of a period, and intrinsic power the importance of an author. 
Artists also in virtue of their historical, scientific, or other extra-literary 
interest are given due weight. American literature is considered as a part 
of the whole, but a brief summary of its history and general characteristics 
is also given. 

The general arrangement of the book and valuable diagrams showing the 
division of literature according to ages and characteristics combine to make 
this manual especially fitted to use in the class-room. 



THE PHYSIOLOGY OF THE SENSES 

By John McKendrick, Professor of Physiology in the Uni- 
versity of Glasgow, and Dr. Snodgrass, Physiological Labor- 
atory, Glasgow. 127 Illustrations. i2mo, 340 pages, $1.50 
net. 

Contents : Sensory Mechanism — Paths of Nervous Impulses — Centers in 
the Cortex of the Brain — Stimulus and Sensation — Touch, Taste, Smell, 
Sight [I. Structure of the Eye— II. Physiology of Vision] — Sound and 
Hearing [The Internal Ear, Auditory Sensations, Psychical Elements] — 
Physiological Conditions of Sensation — Appendix — Index. 

The aim of this book is to give an account of the functions of the organs of 
sense as found in man and the higher animals. While neither minuteness of 
detail in comparative physiology nor extended discussions of a psychological 
character can be expected in a single manual, the physiology of the senses is 
discussed as fully as space will allow. Simple experiments are suggested by 
which any one may test the statements for himself, and the book has been so 
written as to be readily understood by those who have not made physiology 
a special study. It will be found a suitable preparation for entering upon 
the questions that underlie physiolo,t:ical psychology. In the last chapter an 
attempt is made to throw light upon the physiological basis of sensation, in the 
hope of contributing to speculative thought on this problem. Excellent illus- 
trations abound. 



THE UNIVERSITY SERIES 



THE USE AND ABUSE OF MONEY 
By Dr. W. Cunningham, Cambridge. i2mo, $i.oo net. 

Essentially a popular treatise, and the headings of the three 
parts, Social Problems, Practical Questions, and Personal Duty^ 
give a broad view of the large scope of the book. The subject is 
Capital in its relation to Social Progress, and the title emphasizes 
the element of personal responsibility that enters into the ques- 
tions raised. The volume contains a svllabus of subjects and a 
list of books for reference. 

THE FINE ARTS 
By G. Baldwin Brown, Professor of Fine Arts in 
the University of Edinburgh. i2mo, with Illus- 
trations, $1.00 net. 

CONTENTS — Part I. — art as the expression of popu- 
lar FEEUNGS and IDEALS: — THE BEGINNINGS OF ART — THE 
FESTIVAL IN I're RELATION TO THE FORM AND SPIRIT OF CLASSI- 
CAL ART — MEDIi^VAL FLORENCE AND HER PAINTERS. Part II. — 
THE FORMAL CONDITIONS OF ARTISTIC EXPRESSION : — SOME 
ELEMENTS OF EFFECT IN THE ARTS OF FORM — THE WORK OF 
ART AS SIGNIFICANT — THE WORK OF ART AS BEAUTIFUL. 
Part III. — THE ARTS OF FORM : — ARCHITECTURAL BEAUTY IN 
RELATION TO CONSTRUCTION — THE CONVENTIONS OF SCULPTURE 
— PAINTING OLD AND NEW. 

The whole field of the fine-arts of painting, sculpture and 
architecture, their philosophy, function and historic accomplish- 
ment, is covered in Professor Baldwin Brown's compact but ex- 
haustive manual. The work is divided into three parts, the first 
considering art as the expression of popular feelings and ideas — 
a most original investigation of the origin and development of 
the aesthetic impulse ; the second discussing the formal conditions 
of artistic expression ; and the third treating the * ' arts of form " 
in their theory and practice and giving a luminous exposition of 
the significance of the great historic movements in architecture, 
sculpture and painting from the earliest times to the present. 

THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE BEAUTIFUL 

Being the Outlines of the History of Aesthetics. By 
William Knight, Professor of Philosophy in the 
University of St. Andrews. i2mo, $i.oo net. 

CONTENTS — INTRODUCTORY — PREHISTORIC ORIGINS — 
ORIENTAL ART AND SPECULATION — THE PHILOSOPHY OF GREECE 



THE UNIVERSITY SERIES 



— THE NEOPLATONISTS — THE GRAECO-ROMAN PERIOD — MEDIAE- 
VAL! SM — THE PHILOSOPHY OF GERMANY — OF FRANCE — OF 
ITALY — OF HOLLAND — OF BRITAIN — OF AMERICA. 

Not content with presenting an historical sketch of past opin- 
ion and tendency on the subject of the Beautiful, Prof. Knight 
shows how these philosophical theories have been evolved, how 
they have been the outcome of social as well as of intellectual 
causes, and have often been the product of obscure phenomena 
in the life of a nation. Thus a deep human interest is given to 
his synopsis of speculative thought on the subject of Beauty and 
to his analysis of the art school corresponding to each period 
from the time of the Egyptians down to the present day. He 
traces the sequence of opinion in each country as expressed in its 
literature and its art works, and shows how doctrines of art are 
based upon theories of Beauty, and how these theories often have 
their roots in the customs of society itself. 



ENGLISH COLONIZATION AND EMPIRE 

By Alfred Caldecott, St. John's College, Cam- 
bridge. i2mo, with Maps and Diagrams, $i.oo 
net. 

CONTENTS — PIONEER period — international struggle 

— development and separation of AMERICA — THE ENGLISH 
IN INDIA — RECONSTRUCTION AND FRESH DEVELOPMENT — GOV- 
ERNMENT OF THE EMPIRE — TRADE AND TRADE POLICY — SUPPLY 
OF LABOR— NATIVE RACES — EDUCATION AND RELIGION — GEN- 
ERAL REFLECTIONS — BOOKS OF REFERENCE. 

The diffusion of European, and, more particularly, of English, 
civilization over the face of the inhabited and habitable world is 
the subject of this book. The treatment of this great theme covers 
the origin and the historical, political, economical and ethnological 
development of the English colonies, the moral, intellectual, in- 
dustrial and social aspects of the question being also considered. 
There is thus spread before the reader a bird's-eye view of the 
British colonies, great and small, from their origin until the present 
time, with a summary of the wars and other great events which 
have occurred in the progress of this colonizing work, and with 
a careful examination of some of the most important questions, 
economical, commercial and political, which now affect the rela- 
tion of the colonies and the parent nation. The maps and dia- 
grams are an instructive and valuable addition to the book. 



THE UNIVERSITY SERIES 



THE LITERATURE OF FRANCE 

By H. G. Keene, Hon. M.A. Oxon. i2mo, $i.oo 
net. 

CONTENTS — Introduction. — the age of infancy {a. 
Birth) — THE AGE OF INFANCY {b. Growth) — the age of ado- 
lescence (Sixteenth Century) — the age of glory, Part I. 

poetry, etc. — THE AGE OF GLORY, Part II. PROSE — THE 
age of REASON, Part I. — THE AGE OF REASON, Part II. — 
THE AGE OF * NATURE ' — SOURCES OF MODERN FRENCH LITER- 
ARY ART : POETRY — SOURCES OF PROSE FICTION — APPENDIX — 
INDEX. 

"My first impressions are fully confirmed. The book is interesting and 
able. It would be difficult to compress into equal compass a more satisfactory 
or suggestive view of so great a subject. As an introductory text for schools 
and colleges or private readers I have seen nothing so good. The book 
deserves, and I hope will receive, a wide welcome."— Edward S. Jovnes, 
Professor of Modern Languages^ South Carolina College, 



THE REALM OF NATURE 

An Outline of Physiography. By Hugh Robert 
Mill, D.Sc. Edin.; Fellow of the Royal Society 
of Edinburgh ; Oxford Lecturer. Maps and 
68 Illustrations. i2mo, $1.50 net. 

CONTENTS— STORY of nature — substance of nature 

— POWER OF NATURE — THE EARTH A SPINNING BALL — THE 
EARTH A PLANET — THE SOLAR SYSTEM AND UNIVERSE — THE 
ATMOSPHERE — ATMOSPHERIC PHENOMENA — CLIMATES — THE 
HYDROSPHERE — BED OF THE OCEANS— CRUST OF THE EARTH — 
ACTION OF WATER ON LAND — RECORD OF THE ROCKS — 
CONTINENTAL AREA— LIFE AND LIVING CREATURES — MAN IN 
NATURE — APPENDICES — INDEX. 

** An excellent book, clear, comprehensive, and remarkably accurate. The 
standard errors that one has come to expect in one text-book after another are 
successfully avoided, and this indicates high and scholarly attainments on the 
part of the author, and a broad acquaintance with modern sources of scientific 
statements. . . . One who reaches a g:ood understanding of the book may 
regard himself as having made a real advance in his education towards an 
appreciation of nature."— Professor W. M. Davis, of Harvard. 

"Evidently prepared by one who understood his subject."— Professor 
James D. Dana, Yale, 

*• Admirably adapted for High Schools, as also a reference book for 
teachers. I can commend it with pleasure."- Professor S. W. Williston. 



THE UNIVERSITY SERIES 



THE STUDY OF ANIMAL LIFE 

By J. Arthur Thomson, M.A., F.R.S.E., University 

of Edinburgh. i2mo, Illustrated, $1.50 net. 

An original and comprehensive account of all animal life, save 
man. Such topics as the wealth of life on the earth, its distri- 
bution, the struggle for existence, the social and domestic life of 
animals, instinct, structure, heredity, influence of habit and sur- 
roundings, etc., are thoroughly discussed, though in a bright and 
interesting way, and with the fact constantly in mind that the 
book is a manual and not a cyclopaedia or a special treatise. 

" I have read it Mith great delight. It is an admirable work, giving a true 
view of the existing state and tendencie<? of zoology; and it possesses the rare 
merit of being an elementary work, written from the standpoint of the most 
advanced thought, and in a manner to be understood by the begixming stu- 
dent."— J. H. CoMSTOCK, Professor of Entomology in Cornhill University^ 
and in Leland Stanford ftinior Ufiiversity. 

"An interesting and stimulating book, especially so for teachers. The 
style is clear and attractive, and the illustrations excellent. The views taken 
as to evolution and heredity are sound and broad."— A. S. Packard, Professor 
of Zoology^ Brown University, 



THE ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 

An Introduction to Moral Philosophy. By J. H. Muirhead, 
M.A., Royal Holloway College, England. i2mo, $1.00 7tt't ; 
introduction price, 80 cents net. 

Contents : Book I. The Science of Ethics : Problem of, Can there be a 
Science of. Scope of the Science — Book II. Moral Judgment : Object of. 
Standard of, Moral Law — Book III. Theories of the End : As Pleasure, As 
Self-sacrifice, Evolutionary Hedonism — Book IV. The End as Good : As 
Common Good, Forms of the Good — Book V. Moral Progress : Standard 
As Relative, As Progressive, As Ideal — Bibliography. 

" With admirable clearness defines the fields, analyzes ethical phenomena, 
subjects theories of various schools to searching criticism, and builds up in 
logical fashion his own system. An idealist, . , , can render good reasons 
for the faith that is in him. Spirit tolerant, method scientific, style easy and 
graceful." — Public Opinion. 

"The is no other introduction which can be recommended.'' 

— The Academy, London. 

Returnable examination copy to Instructors, with view to 
class use, at Introduction price. 



THE UNIVERSITY SERIES 



THE EARTH'S HISTORY 

An Introduction to Modern Geology. By R. D. Roberts, 
M.A., Camb., D.Sc, Lond. With colored Maps and Illustra- 
tions. i2mo, $1.50 net. 

The purpose of this volume is to furnish a sketch of the methods and 
chief resuhs of geological inquiry, such as a student, or a reader interested 
in the subject for its own sake, would desire to obtain. It is shown that 
Geology is not a mere description of rocks and fossils, but a history, and 
the purpose of the geologist is to reconstruct from ancient fragmentary 
remains the old conditions that characterized successive stages ot develop- 
ment — in a word, to make out the life history of the earth. Some of the 
problems are : the nature of the crust movements to which land-areas and 
mountain ranges are due ; what was the distribution of land and water when 
each group of rocks was formed ; what the extent and contour of the land 
were, the condition of its surface and the forms of life ; what the oceanic 
conditions, depths, life inhabiting the water, nature and extent of the 
materials brought down by rivers. 

The records of this series of events are to be found in the successive 
groups of rocks, and the chief object of this volume is to present in broad 
outline results of geological research which throw light upon the structural 
history of the earth, and the method by which that history is worked 
out. 



THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

By Charles E. Mallet, Balliol College, Oxford. i2mo, 
$1.00 net. 

Contents : Introductory — I. Condition of France in the Eighteenth Cen- 
tury — II. Last Years of the Ancient Regime — III. The Early Days of the 
Revolution — IV. Labours of the Constituent Assembly — V. Parties and Poli- 
ticians under the Constituent Assembly — VI. The Rise of the Jacobin 
Party — VII. Influence of the War upon the Revolution — VIII. Fall of the 
Gironde — IX. The Jacobins in Power — X. The Struggle of Parties and 
the Ascendency of Robespierre — XI. The Reaction — Tables of Dates — 
Appendix of Books — Index. 

This book has a special value to students and readers who do not own the 
great works of such writers as De Tocquevillc, Taine, Michelet, and Von Sybel; 
for it summarizes what ti^ese and other writers tell us. Mr. Mallet presents 
economic and political aspects of society before the Revolution ; attempts to 
explain why the Revolution came ; why the men who made it failed to attam 
the liberty they so ardently desired, or to found the new order which they hoped 
to see in France ; by what arts and accidents, owing to what deeper causes, an 
inconspicuous minority gradually grew into a victorious party; how external 
circumstances kept the revolutionary fever up, and forced the Revolution for- 
ward. He undertakes to make clear the mystery of the time, the real character 
and aims of the men who grasped the supreme power in 1793-4, who held it 
with such a combination of energy and folly, of heroism and crime, and who 
proceeded, through anarchy and terror, to experiment how social misery could 
be extinguished and universal felicity attained, by drastic philosophic remedies, 
applied by despots, and enforced by death. History offers no problem of more 
surpassing interest, and none more perplexing or obscure. 



THE UNIVERSITY SERIES 



LOGIC, INDUCTIVE AND DEDUCTIVE 

By William Minto, Late Professor of Logic in the University 

of Aberdeen. i2mo, with Diagrams, $1.25 net. 

•* Rarely does one find within so short a compass such ample learning, lucid 
arrangements, captivating style, subservience to readers' needs." — Professor 
G. H. Palmer, of Harvard. 

" It is the best manual that has appeared since Jevons published his Lessons. 
I shall commend it to my students in the autumn."' — Professor G. M. Duncan, 
of Yale, 

CHAPTERS IN MODERN BOTANY 

By Patrick Geddes, Professor of Botany, University College, 

Dundee. i2mo, with Diagrams, $1.25 net. 

" It would be hard to imagine anything more perfectly adapted to the pur- 
pose. It reads like a novel, and I have been literally devouring it ; at the same 
time it is distinctively and thoroughly scientific." — -Professor V. M. Spalding, 

Un IV e rs ity of Mich iga n . 

GREECE IN THE AGE OF PERICLES 

By Arthur J. Grant, of King's College, Cambridge. i2mo, 
with Illustrations, $1.25 net. 

Contents: I. The Essentials of Greek Civilization — II. The Religion of 
the Greeks— III. Sparta— IV. The Earlier History of Athens— V. The Rivalry 
of Athens and Sparta — VI. Civil Wars in Greece — VII. The Athenian De- 
mocracy — VIII. Pericles : His Policy and His Friends — IX. .Society in Greece 
— X. Ihe Peloponnesian War to the Death of Pericles — XI. The Peloponnesian 
War— XII. Thought and Art in Athens. 

THE JACOBEAN POETS 

By Edmund Gosse, Hon. M.A., Trinity College, Cambridge. 
1 2 m o , $ In J) 7^ ess. 

This little volume is an attempt to direct critical attention to all that was 
notable in English poetry from 1603-1625. It is the first attempt to concentrate 
attention on the poetry produced during the reign of James I. Many writers 
appear here for the first time in a book of this nature. The aim has been to find 
unfamiliar beauties rather than to reprint for the thousandth time what is already 
familiar. 



CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, 

Publishers, Importers, and Booksellers, 

743-745 Broadway, New York City. 



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